The Fourth Dimension
by Raeigh
Summary: Izumo Kamizuki is a good chunin. If you need someone to guard Konoha's gates, he's your guy. If you need someone to go back in time to save the world from a Rinne Sharingan-wielding Rabbit Goddess… he'd probably refer you to someone higher up, like Kakashi or Naruto. Regardless, the entire world has gone to hell and apparently he's the only one left to do the job.
1. Prologue

The Fourth Dimension

Hey! This is the first Naruto fic I've written in a while. This is officially a one-shot, but the ending leaves room for a lot of story afterwards. I have a lot of things planned that occur after this fic, but I'm not great at finishing stories, but this is finished and works as a stand-alone. Right now it's a one shot, but I might expand on it someday. I hope you like it! I'm extremely particular about spelling and grammar so please don't hesitate to let me know if I missed something! It's 3:17 and I basically just sat down for a few hours and pounded it out so I'm sure there's something somewhere.

For those of you to whom it matters: this story contains bits of slash. In my opinion, this isn't a romance, but the first half of the story does contain two men doing very, very NOT graphic romantic things, which is necessary for the plot of the fic. If this is going to be an issue for you please do not read it.

There really shouldn't be anything triggering in here that I can think of. There are some parts that could potentially, if you squint really hard, be construed as someone trying to coerce a character into intimacy, but there is no sex whatsoever and I don't think anyone should have issues with it. Still, if you're sensitive to that stuff be forewarned (although as I mentioned in the tags the intimacy is PG at most).

Prologue

The sun was shining brightly over the Village Hidden in Leaves. True to its name, the Fire Country tended to have summers that were almost stiflingly hot and humid. Travelers from milder nations, like Tea Country or Rice country often complained about the weather, preferring to visit Konoha in the autumn when the temperature was milder and the leaves displayed an impressive array of colors. Izumo had always been partial to summer though. Maybe it was because he'd grown up in the village, but he always felt like Konoha was far livelier that time of year. When one knew the right ways to use their chakra, the intense rays of the sun weren't as punishing. Plus there was something cheerful about the way the light glinted off the many streams and rivers throughout the village, and the ancient Hashirama trees almost seemed to strengthen and become more vibrant under the summer sun.

"How you can be so damn cheerful when it's this miserably hot baffles me year after year."

It didn't hurt that Kotetsu always whined about the heat. Izumo got a sense of perverse pleasure, being able to rub his comfort in his partner's face. It was a sort of sadistic revenge for always having to drag the lazy man around.

Izumo shielded his eyes with his hand, and then glanced up from his desk. The spiky-haired brunet was staring down at him, exasperated. Kotetsu's hip was cocked, one hand resting on his waist while the other wiped at his brow. Izumo couldn't keep his eyes from tracking an errant drop of sweat making its way down the other man's collar.

"You're late, Ko'," he chimed brightly. "And it's not my fault that you don't have good enough chakra control keep yourself cool."

"Izumo, you're the only ninja in the whole village who can rouse himself on time for gate-duty in the middle of a heat wave," Kotetsu sniped irritably. He pointedly ignored the jab at his skill with chakra.

The chunin narrowed his eyes up at his friend from his seat. "Oh? So we should have just left these sitting wide open, unattended?" Izumo waved at the enormous wooden doors that served as the main entrance into Konoha. "Guarding the gate is one of the most important jobs a chunin can be assigned. It shows that the Hokage trusts us to be the first line of defense into the-"

"First line of defense into the village, watching out for the merchants whose trade we rely on, Will of Fire, protect our home, blah, blah, blah," interrupted Kotetsu. "Yes, I'm familiar with this lecture, _intimately_. I've heard it at least a hundred times since we became chunin, and I wish that was an exaggeration."

"Kotetsu!" griped Izumo, "You know I hate it enough when you show up to your missions late. Belittling our job isn't exactly getting you out of the dog house here."

Rather than look contrite, the other chunin grinned, and placed his hands flat on the table in front of Izumo, so that he was leaning over him. "C'mon… you're not _too_ mad at me, are you?"

Izumo leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. He adopted his best 'unimpressed' look and stayed silent, knowing that his partner was far too skillful at twisting his words. The silent treatment tended to yield the best results when he needed Kotetsu to do something.

Unfortunately, the other man was stubborn. He leaned even closer, so that their noses were almost touching. The grin slipped off his face, instead replaced by a small, coy upward quirk of the corners of his mouth. His eyes darkened with intent. "Really Izumo?" Kotetsu whispered, drawing his name out slowly, each syllable separated so that he felt three puffs of air against his lips. "There's _nothing_ I can do to make you forgive me."

Flustered, the chunin put his hands on his partner's shoulders, intending to push him away but not quite managing to muster up the willpower necessary.

"Kotetsu! We're on duty! You know I can't- mmmph…"

Izumo was cut off as his friend's lips met his own. His hands tightened on the man's shoulders, grip painfully tight half in punishment for distracting him and half out of a desire to pull him closer. Kotetsu's eyes flashed with mirth, knowing that he'd won. Really, the overgrown child was insufferable every time he got out of trouble through a kiss…

Every time?

He must have frozen, because Kotetsu backed up, and looked at him with concern. "Hey, do I have a funny taste in my mouth or something?" he tried to joke, but the seated man could still detect the worry in his tone.

Izumo paid him no mind however, rising from his chair and glancing around frantically.

"Something's not right Ko'… there's something about this that's… _wrong_."

"Wrong how? 'Zumo everything's perfect. It's miserably hot- which you love. We're on gate duty- which you also love. And I don't think I need to tell you that you're with the person you love."

"Of course I love you," he frowned, distracted, "but…" Ignoring Kotetsu's confused glance, he brought his hands together in a Ram seal. There was no way that this-

Izumo smirked at the Akatsuki member stuck in his Syrup Trap, unconscious. Upon first glance, his technique looked like a normal water jutsu, sprayed harmlessly over the ground; however, anyone who stepped foot on it would become helplessly entangled in the viscous fluid. Only those who knew the trick to traversing over it (a secret that was limited to himself and his partner) could escape it unscathed. The technique is what had made him and Kotetsu known throughout the Elemental countries. Very few opponents could avoid it, and in combination with his partner's expertise with various weaponry, they were a duo feared by missing nin all over the world.

"I feel bad for him you know?"

Izumo glanced over Kotetsu. The man hadn't resealed his conch mace, and the giant shell-like bludgeon rested harmlessly on top of the Syrup Trap.

"Why's that?"

"Well, he was already out cold _before_ you kicked him in the ribs. I think you might've broken a few."

Izumo huffed, but couldn't quite keep his grin off his face. "Well, if that Akatsuki bastard wanted to be treated nicely then he shouldn't have threatened my home."

"Woah! Cursing from our little goody-two-shoes Izumo Kamizuki?" the other nin whistled, "Now I really know he pissed you off."

He didn't rise to the bait, instead glaring at the figure on the ground, particularly his black cloak adorned with crimson clouds. "After what their leader tried to do to Konoha? The very existence of that organization is an insult to every one of us."

Kotetsu placed a placating hand on his shoulder. "Yeah," he smiled, "But we drove him off. Konoha's still standing strong, and as long as we're around it's going to stay that way, alright?"

Izumo relaxed a bit, grateful as ever for his friend's support. "Somehow you always know what to say to make me feel better." The other man looked skeptical, so he continued. "Alright, alright. So all the times where you're _not_ driving me totally insane with your laziness, lack of gratitude, and lecherous ways… _then_ you always know what to say to make me better."

The brunet started to laugh, but quickly cut himself off when a masked Anbu member dropped down from the branches above them.

"Sir! We're ready to transport the prisoner. Should we take him or do you want to oversee it yourselves?"

Kotetsu glanced his way, deferring to his judgement as always. Izumo frowned in thought. The woman in front of them, clad in the gray, sleeveless vest common to all Anbu members as well as a stylized rabbit mask didn't move a muscle while she waited for his answer.

"No, we beat him up pretty well. You all should be able to handle it from here without any issues."

"Yes sir!" she acknowledged, before signaling to her team.

He could feel Kotetsu practically vibrating with impatience next to him, but the man waited dutifully as Izumo dismissed his Syrup Trap so that the Anbu team could gather up the unconscious Akatsuki member. It wasn't until their chakra signatures ventured to the edge of their perception that his partner made his move.

"Ugh," Izumo grunted softly, surprised at how fast Kotetsu had pinned him up against the nearest tree. While he was the more skilled of the two of them when it came to ninjutsu, the other man was definitely physically stronger than him due to all his practice with his weapons arsenal. He couldn't help but be thrilled at the fact that his friend could pin him down.

"Kotetsu…" he chided, but they both knew his heart wasn't in it.

The shorter man (only by a centimeter and a half! As he would always insist) captured both his wrists and pinned them against the trunk above their heads.

"Izumo," he breathed, and Gods but the man's husky voice always made his resolve weak, "Can you give me the lecture about mission professionalism when we get back to the village? You know that watching you beat up on bad guys always makes me so fucking _hot_."

"Shit," Izumo cursed as Kotetsu pressed their bodies together. There wasn't even an inch of space in between them, and he _ached_ for his partner's touch. He'd always wished-

"I want you so badly Izumo." His friend ground their hips together, and his eyes closed in pleasure, almost involuntarily. "Won't you let me give you what you want?"

It was perfect. Everything was perfect. It was like all of his dreams come true. The two of them, elite ninja… Konoha's finest, and head over heels in love. Still, there was something nagging at the back of his mind, like an itch between his shoulder blades that he couldn't quite reach. He turned his head away from Kotetsu's, although the man just took that as an invitation to kiss his neck. It almost succeeded at distracting him.

"Wait, Ko', something's not right."

"What do you mean something's not right?" Kotetsu frowned. "This is what you want, Izumo. I _know_ that this is what you want."

Izumo pushed at his friend, and was surprised at the amount of resistance Kotetsu put up. Still he managed to free his hands from the other man's grasp.

"Of course this is what I want. I love you. It's just that… Gods something just seems wrong."

Kotetsu leaned a little closer to him, resting his hands on the bark behind Izumo's back, like brackets around him. "Please," he pleaded imploringly. "Just let me make you happy. You can be so happy."

The itching feeling grew stronger, until it was almost like a buzz in his ear, strange and foreign.

"No, Kotetsu, I think…"

It was like he couldn't verbalize his thoughts, like there was a block on the words, but his instincts honed over years as a ninja kicked in, and he brought his hands together in a Ram seal. Kotetsu's expression appeared, strangely, almost panicked for a moment. He felt a twinge of regret for causing the look on his friend's face, but he had to-

Sunlight streamed gently through the open window. It was summertime, Izumo's favorite part of the year, but the oppressive heat that was the trademark of Fire Country summers hadn't quite appeared yet, due to the early hour of the morning. A gentle breeze caused the bedsheets to flutter, but he held them down so that they wouldn't rouse Kotetsu sleeping next to him. He just hoped that the pile of dirty laundry stacked precariously on the chair in the corner of the room wouldn't fall and cause a ruckus. Kotetsu really was a slob.

Izumo couldn't help but laugh quietly at the state of his friend's bedroom. He'd spent years when they were teenagers trying to instill some discipline in his partner. The fact that the clothes were stacked on the chair, semi-contained, rather than spread haphazardly all over the room was the only testament to his efforts.

"What'chu laughing at, huh?"

Izumo turned to look at Kotetsu, letting the wind ruffle the bedsheets since the man was apparently already awake.

"Just reminiscing," he said quietly, before his breath caught in his throat.

Kotetsu was looking up at him fondly, a soft look on his face. For once the other man didn't have that ridiculous bandage strapped across his cheeks, covering the bridge of his nose. Sometimes Izumo could hardly believe how handsome his friend was, or how much he wanted him. The sheets were pooled at their waists, and his partner's naked torso was on full display. He had more than a few nicks and scars, evidence of over a decade of work as a ninja, but it didn't detract from his beauty. He had the physique of a ninja, hard muscles and sharp planes. Izumo couldn't help but run his fingers through the hair on the other man's chest; he loved the contrast between the softness of the fluff and the solid musculature. Gods, he was such a sap, waxing about Kotetsu's _chest hair_ of all things.

His friend knew what direction his thoughts were taking, as evidenced by the indulgent expression he was wearing. However, he didn't say anything, placing a hand on top of Izumo's on his chest, and glancing over him as appreciatively as he was looking at the other man.

Days like these were the best, lazy mornings where the two of them could spend all the time they wanted in bed, without worrying about duty or obligations. As much as Izumo loved his village, and loved serving it, he wished that he could spend all his time just lounging around with Kotetsu, and if his partner had any say it in that was probably all they'd do. He laughed at the thought.

"There you go, laughing at me again," Kotetsu grinned, before drawing him in so that they were lying down next to each other, barely any space between them.

Gods but it was perfect.

"I love you so much, Izumo. I want to stay like this forever."

"Ko' I love you…" I love you too, he wanted to say, but he couldn't help but feel a strange nagging feeling, like an itch between his shoulder blades.

"Izumo," Kotetsu said insistently, leaning in to kiss him.

"Just wait a second."

"No, Izumo, c'mon I just wanna make you happy."

"Yeah I know," he replied, distracted. "There's something wrong." There was no hesitation in his tone. This time he was sure… This time?

"Why do you always _do_ this Izumo? Why can't you just let yourself be happy?" Kotetsu begged. He looked desperate. The expression just made the feeling of dissonance grow stronger.

"What do you mean, 'always'?"

"Izumo!" the other man cried, ignoring his question. "Why isn't it ever enough for you? Don't you love me? Don't you _want_ this?"

"Of course I want this!" he protested. "This is all I've ever wanted. I love you more than I've ever loved anyone, but…"

It hit him like a punch to the stomach, although an actual punch would have been preferable. The realization that his brain had been trying to make all this time (all this time?)…

"I love you Kotetsu, but you don't love me."

"What are you talking about?" the man before him cried. "Of course I love you. Why would I be here if I didn't love you?"

Izumo shoved him away, springing up from the bed, heedless of his nudity. "No. Kotetsu doesn't love me, not like this. _You're_ not him… I don't know who you are."

Izumo had always known that his friend loved him platonically, like a brother. He'd wanted… in all of his fantasies they'd been together, but he knew there was no chance. Kotetsu just didn't have feelings for men like that. It had been hard to swallow, but he'd come to accept that they'd only be together in his dreams.

The room around him flickered, like the lights were being flipped on and off, before it righted itself.

"Don't be ridiculous," not-Kotetsu attempted, but it was clear that the thing in front of him wasn't his friend.

"This isn't real," Izumo breathed, and then like a door swinging open in his mind, he understood. It was like he'd been reaching for knowledge, constantly just out of range, and then it smacked straight into his hand. "This is… this is a genjutsu!"

"No!" the thing cried, abandoning all pretext of being Kotetsu, but it wasn't fast enough. Izumo slammed his hands together.

"KAI!"

The world _burned_. This was hardly the first time that Izumo had been stuck in a genjutsu. He was pretty good at them, and even better at getting himself out of them. Normally it felt like an oily film over his eyes, slipping away over his head. Releasing himself from an illusion was a relief; it made everything make sense again.

This wasn't like that. This was like the dispel technique had reached into his brain and ripped something out of his head. His eyes, for some reason, throbbed the worst, and he squeezed them shut tightly to ward off the pain. It felt like every nerve in his body was on fire. He felt simultaneously keyed up, on edge, and utterly exhausted, like his very essence was being drained from him.

"Shit, Gods, shit," Izumo muttered almost unconsciously. He'd never experienced anything so horrible, and the sharp sting across his face was almost a relief.

On reflex, his eyes snapped open in response to what he belatedly realized was a slap to the face. The chunin tried to jump away from his assailant, only to find that he was completely restrained. He forced himself to calm down. He'd been trained to deal with these situations, and Izumo desperately tried to recall the protocols in order to ground himself. What was first again? Oh right! Analyze the surroundings.

There was a man directly in front of him, and judging by his raised palm he'd probably been the one to hit Izumo. He was wearing a tattered, sleeveless but high-collared shirt. His hair was short, black and spikey, and the right half of his face was marred by painful looking scars, like it had been rearranged the painful way. Finally, Izumo saw what he probably should have noticed first: the pair of bright red sharingan eyes.

"Uchiha… Obito?" he gasped. Suddenly he remembered. The fourth shinobi war. The ten tailed beast. The last he'd seen of the man in front of him had been when the Uchiha was forced by the strange black _thing_ to revive Madara, and their plot to ensnare everyone in the world in…

Izumo jerked as much as he was able, and examined his bindings. As he had feared, but half expected, he was encased in what appeared to be some twisted form of tree roots. That meant that Naruto hadn't been able to stop the Moon's Eye Plan…

"Hey!" Obito snapped, shaking him roughly. "How did you free yourself from the Infinite Tsukuyomi?"

Izumo blinked, dazed. "What..?"

"Answer me!" the man in front of him demanded, sharingan eyes spinning with malice.

"I don't know! I just dispelled the illusion. Are you saying that you didn't help me?"

"No, I-" Obito jerked his head up, glancing at something over Izumo's shoulder. "Shit, we don't have time for this. She's coming."

The Uchiha swiftly cut him loose from the Shinju, and the chunin collapsed to his hands and knees. His chakra was extremely depleted. He'd never really experienced chakra exhaustion. He was such a stickler for the rules that he'd never let himself get so close to the edge during his training, and most of his career had been during peace times. Izumo was pretty sure that this was the lowest his reserves had ever gotten.

"What happened? Why's my chakra gone?"

"The God Tree sucked out your chakra and used it to revive Otsutsuki Kaguya. Just be glad that you didn't end up like them." Obito gestured to a figure hanging from the Shinju, and with a start Izumo realized that it was one of those strange white creatures, the ones that they'd been fighting before the Ten Tailed beast had been revived.

"Is that…?"

"A white Zetsu. It used to be a human."

Izumo blanched. "That was a shinobi? Wait! The tree was trying to do that to _me_?"

"Yeah," the Uchiha confirmed, before burning away the vines that were slowly creeping forward, trying to reclaim their freed victim.

"Am I… am I not human anymore?"

Obito spared him a glance. "You look human enough to me. Well… there is a little- whatever. We have bigger problems."

Izumo wanted to protest. As far as he was concerned there wasn't any bigger issue than the fact that his body might be turning into an evil plant monster, but he didn't really _feel_ any different. "What do you mean? There's a little _what_?"

"Shut up," the Uchiha growled, grabbing him by the collar of his vest and pulling them face to face. "And don't resist."

Izumo wanted to ask him what he meant. Resist what? However, he was captivated by the sight of Obito's eyes transforming, changing from the standard sharingan into something different. The mangekyo, he realized. The other man's pupils seemed to spin before Izumo realized the entire _world_ was spiraling around him.

When his surrounding stabilized, the chunin gaped. Everything was eerily dark, and rather than trees and dirt, there were large, rectangular almost-buildings on every side of them. It was kind of like being on top of a cityscape, and looking at the horizon. A quick glance off the side of the platform Obito had dropped them on revealed that he couldn't even see the bottom of the strange domain.

"Kaguya hasn't been in my dimension yet, but she has the ability to jump between worlds. I've bought us some time, but not much."

Izumo's head was spinning, and he didn't think it was just from the chakra exhaustion. He was barely keeping up with what was going on. One moment they were fighting the ten-tails, then the next he was struggling with the illusions of Kotetsu, and now he was in a whole other dimension?

"I don't understand. Who's Kaguya, what are we doing? Are you on our side now?"

Obito glared at him and grimaced. "It turns out that Madara was Kaguya's pawn all along. The Moon's Eye Plan was never meant to bring peace to the world. It was just supposed to keep everyone docile long enough for Kaguya—that's the Sage of Six Path's mom, by the way—to absorb all the chakra in the world and revive herself. She killed Madara in the process."

Madara was dead? Izumo was just more confused. "Does that mean she's good then?"

"No!" The 'you idiot' seemed to go unspoken. "What part of her enslaving the entire human race and turning them into mindless soldiers did you miss?"

"None of it!" Izumo protested. "It's just… we're changing enemies so quickly. I can barely keep track of who I'm meant to be fighting!"

The Uchiha didn't look happy about it, but wasn't yelling at him anymore at least. "You and me both," he muttered. The chunin didn't think he was meant to hear it.

Izumo centered himself. He was a shinobi of Konoha, and his job was to protect his friends from whomever… or whatever this Kaguya person was. "Alright, so Kaguya. How can I help? What do we do to beat her?"

"Beat her?" Obito laughed bitterly. "There's nothing we can do to beat her. She makes Madara seem like a genin. Naruto and Sasuke were the only people who had the ability to seal her away."

That made sense. Those two were impossibly powerful. Izumo had seen them fighting against Obito and the Ten Tailed beast, and they were probably the strongest shinobi alive.

"Did they get captured by the World Tree? Is that why you rescued me, so that I could dispel the illusion?" Izumo wasn't sure how he'd gotten out of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, but he would do whatever it took to help Sasuke and Naruto.

Obito averted his gaze downward for a moment, his jaw clenching tightly.

"Naruto… Sasuke… They were never caught in the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Kaguya killed them."

Izumo felt the blood drain out of his face. "But- but…" He worked his jaw silently for a moment before the words sprung out from him. "But you said they were the only ones who had the power to defeat Kaguya!"

"They were!" the Uchiha yelled. "They were," he repeated, this time in a broken whisper. Obito turned away from him, running his hand through his hair before grabbing at his head in what looked to be a painful grip.

He stared at the other man, almost unwilling to make the obvious conclusion. "If they're… gone… then what are we even doing? What's the point of even freeing me?"

His companion put his hands down at his sides, making tight fists that betrayed his anxiety. "I have another- there's another way, maybe. This place, this is my dimension. I'm connected to it through my Kamui, my eye technique. It doesn't exist in the same space as the world you're used to. I can enter it from any place in that world and exit it anywhere as well."

"So…" Izumo mused. "We can go somewhere that Kaguya can't find us? What good will that do for everyone who's trapped?" he asked, thinking for a horrible moment about Kotetsu, bound and slowly losing his humanity.

"No," Obito refuted, "There's no place in this world or any other that Kaguya couldn't find us. My eyes have the power to take me anywhere. I can go to any longitude, latitude or altitude, anywhere in three dimensions, and maybe even somewhere in the _fourth_ dimension."

"The fourth dimension? You mean… time?" He'd read about the fourth dimension. It was simple in theory. A point was the zeroth dimension, and an object moving forward in a line would be in the first dimension. The same object could keep its orientation along the first line, but then move left or right- the second dimension. If it wasn't moving left, right, forward, or backward, it could still go up or down, which made altitude the third dimension. Where it got harder to conceptualize was higher levels. The object could stay in the same place, not moving up, down, right, left, forward, or backwards, but still change its position in _time_ , which was why scholars called time the fourth dimension.

"You can open a portal to any longitude, latitude, or altitude, so you think that you can go to any point in time as well?"

"I know it sounds crazy," Obito protested, "But you don't understand what it's like to have these eyes. There's no guide or manual, you just have to _feel_ your powers, to _intuit_ them. Everyone's mangekyo is different. I've always felt that my sharingan has the power to send things back in time."

What the hell had happened to his world? Izumo was a chunin. He didn't deal with things like all-powerful bijuu, ancient world-destroying women, or time travel. He guarded Konoha's gates and ran errands for the Godaime.

"So you want to go back in time and prevent this from ever happening?"

"Not me," Obito grimaced. Izumo was beginning to feel like it was the only expression the Uchiha could make. "You think I haven't tried to go back before? That was the first thing I did once I got the hang of my abilities," the scarred man scoffed. "It's complicated though, not like opening a normal portal. When I tried going through time I couldn't alter the other dimensions. I had to put myself in the exact same physical location I'd been at some point before, to take the place of _that_ Obito, so that the only thing that changed was time itself."

"I… guess that makes sense," he responded. It didn't really. None of this made any sense but the chunin didn't want to think about it too hard. "What was the problem then?"

"I can get the path open," the Uchiha responded, "But as soon as I try to step through I create a paradox. The moment I touch the portal I exist in two places… in two _times_ at once. In the future, I'm opening a portal to the other dimension, but in the _past_ I'm not. I'm in a state of both opening and not opening the portal, and the paradox causes the doorway to collapse before I can get all the way through." Obito huffed, irritated. "If I opened a portal, in the past, to the exact same point in the future that I was trying to travel back from, it _might_ work, but once I realized that I couldn't use it to save… Well, let's just say I lost interest."

Izumo's greatest strength wasn't his combat abilities, or even his skill with ninjutsu, but rather his quick wit and meticulous nature. "So you need to stay in this time in order to keep the portal open…" he mused, "But, someone _else_ , someone who isn't controlling the portal from either side might be able to step through without creating a paradox."

"Exactly" Obito agreed, finally looking at Izumo like he wasn't entirely hopeless.

"And that's where I come in," Izumo continued, excited. "If we go back to our dimension I can free the Kages, and we can send them back in time to better prepare for the War! They can prevent all this from happening!"

The sick feeling in his gut that had been present ever since the other man explained their predicament finally lifted. Even with the gloomy surroundings in the Kamui dimension, Izumo felt his spirits rising. He didn't know how he freed himself from the Infinite Tsukuyomi, or how he'd help someone else out of it, but he'd figure it out. He _had_ to.

"You don't understand," Obito cried, grabbing him by his arms. "There is no escaping the Infinite Tsukuyomi."

"What are you talking about," protested the chunin. "If _I_ can escape, the Kages can definitely get out."

The Uchiha jerked his head to the side in one sharp motion. "No. No human power is capable of resisting the Rinne Sharingan's illusion. It's cast by the most powerful person in all of existence, fueled by the chakra of the ten tailed monster. The fact that you escaped is a fluke, a one in a billion chance. For all I know, you might have been partially shielded by Sasuke's Susanoo, or maybe by some freak coincidence you missed getting the full brunt of the light of the moon. All I know is that you _definitely_ won't be able to free anyone else. The only one who we can send back is you."

The sick feeling Izumo had experienced before returned full force. "Me? I'm… I'm just a chunin. I'd get crushed by any of the regular Akatsuki," as if any of the S-ranked criminals in the organization could be described as 'regular.' "Let alone the monsters like Madara or Kaguya. I _can't_ help. You're better off looking for someone else who escaped the full force of the Moon."

Obito's grip on his arms tightened, and the man shook him. The Uchiha's sharingan were burning into his own eyes, the desperation in them shaking Izumo to his core. " _Listen to me!_ There _is_ nobody else. I was able to feel it when you regained your consciousness, and believe me when I say that no one else in the entire world did the same. You and me… we're the only people in existence who aren't dead or enslaved by Kaguya."

Izumo Kamizuki… was the only person who could save the world? Izumo wasn't the kind of ninja that you gave missions like this. He was decent at what he did, and he used to tell Kotetsu that they'd make jounin one day, but he never really _believed_ it. He was the kind of ninja that spent his entire career quietly in the chunin corps before retiring at thirty and spending the rest of his life pushing forms in Administration.

"What the hell am _I_ supposed to do that would make a difference? I'm not even close enough to the Hokage to convince her that I'm telling the truth!"

"I don't know!" Obito yelled. "All I know is that you're the only one who can do _anything_ and you can't exactly make it worse than it is right now. Hell you'd probably do better than me. All I do is make things worse."

Izumo's eyes widened. "You! You in the past. I can tell you about this and you can stop it-"

"Whatever you do," Obito interrupted, " _Don't_ approach me. I'd definitely kill you if I thought that you were going to interfere with my plans, and Madara still had a mind control seal on me. There's no one else you can rely on but yourself…" the other man trailed off as if in contemplation.

"You're thinking of something," Izumo said cautiously, aware of his companion's somewhat violent changes in attitude.

"Itachi," Obito said finally. "He'd help you if you could explain yourself in private, and he might be crazy enough to believe a story like yours."

"Itachi Uchiha?" Izumo questioned, confused.

"Yeah," the sharingan wielder confirmed, looking hopeful for the first time in their conversation. "He's loyal to Konoha. The Uchiha massacre…" the man trailed off, looking to the side in growing horror.

"No! I thought we had more time!"

Izumo had never had much talent as a sensor, but somehow he could feel the malevolent chakra emanating from the space to his left. It started as a single black dot (zero dimensions, a voice in the back of him mind lectured) then it grew to a line (the first dimension) and finally expanded into a plane (two dimensions). Finally, something breached the infinite blackness. An object moved forward through the portal (forward- the third dimension). The first thing he saw was an eye, the same eye he'd seen reflected on the moon's surface before everything went to hell. The Rinne Sharingan. Eventually he was able to see that it was set grotesquely on the forehead of a woman (if she was even human enough to be called a woman), with a vertical slit for an 'eyelid'. In the place where a normal human's eyes would be, she had blank orbs that Izumo recognized as the Byakugan. From the sides of her head, two long horn-like structures protruded. Her white hair fanned out behind her like some strange facsimile of a peacock.

It was unmistakably Kaguya, and she was horrifying in every sense of the word. Her chakra pressed down on him, commanding him to submit, to give in, to bow down to her. Madara hadn't felt this powerful. The Ten Tailed beast hadn't felt this powerful. Izumo understood fully now, why Obito had told him that fighting her was hopeless.

Kaguya stood… hovered, rather, motionless as the rift in space closed behind her. "My children…" Her voice was a strange dichotomy of melodic and discordant. Izumo wouldn't have thought it possible if he wasn't hearing it firsthand. It just added to the overall feeling of terror she inspired. "Why are you fighting me? Why won't you just let me make you happy?"

Hearing those words again reminded him of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, the oily feeling of wrongness that pervaded his entire experience, especially thinking back on it now that he was free. He'd die before he went back under its spell.

As if she heard his thoughts, the apparition turned to face him. The burning feeling of the Rinne Sharingan's focus on him instantly made him sweat, and the pressure of her chakra increased. "Izumo, don't you want to be with me? Don't you love me?" Even though he could see her, see her lips moving, it was Kotetsu's voice that came out of her mouth. He could only tremble.

Obito broke out of her spell first. Izumo saw him form a familiar hand sign, one that he was used to seeing a certain blonde-haired jinchuriki make.

"Shadow clone!" the Uchiha snarled. The clone took their place as the other man grabbed him, fleeing backwards.

"My clone will engage her as long as possible. You've got to go back now. It's our only hope!"

Obito's hands came together in the Ram seal to focus his chakra, and his eyes swirled into the shape of the Mangekyo sharingan. Maybe there was something different about the Kamui dimension that made him more perceptive, but he could feel the massive amount of chakra the other man was forcing to his eyes. Izumo had no doubt that Obito was using every last bit he had on this jutsu. If he Kaguya didn't kill him, then he'd certainly die of chakra exhaustion.

"Kamui!"

Contrary to Kaguya's dimensional travel, Obito's technique was like a spiral warping through the air in front of them.

"Go!" the Uchiha cried, shoving him forward. Izumo made the mistake of looking back at him, and saw Kaguya—awful, immense—looming behind them.

"Obito look out!"

It didn't make a difference. Izumo watched in horror as Kaguya extended a hand out towards the Uchiha, and a bone-like blade grew out of her palm. Obito didn't budge an inch as the weapon impaled him. He was too focused on the portal, staring at it and shaking with exertion. The chunin felt frozen to the spot, seeing the area around the man's wound start dissolving into ash.

"Izumo! Go!" Obito cried, heedless of his mortal injury.

Jerking himself from his stupor, he fought everything his primal instincts were screaming at him, and turned his back on the monster behind Obito. He was their only chance now. The fate of the entire world was in Izumo's hands.

Izumo jumped through the portal.


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: So I ended up deciding to continue this work after all! Thanks very much to my kind reviewers; I hope you like the next installment. My goal is to have a semi-regular updating schedule, but this week things are very crazy for me in terms of moving and travelling, so it may take me a bit longer.

Impossibility, like Wine

Exhilarates the Man

Who tastes it; Possibility

Is flavorless – Combine

A Chance's faintest Tincture

And in the former Dram

Enchantment makes ingredient

As certainly as Doom-

Emily Dickenson.

Chapter 1: Naruto Uzumaki!

The world was spinning around him, which was only appropriate given the spiraling nature of Obito's technique. He'd closed his eyes instinctively after he'd thrown himself into the portal, and as soon as he'd entered, it was like he was frozen. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't even open his eyes to try to see what was going on around him. The chunin felt like he was falling. ' _Was this what it felt like to go back in time?_ ' he wondered. It seemed to last an eternity and yet, in his state of suspended animation, there was no evidence that time was passing at all. He hurtled faster and faster (or at least, it seemed like it) until he felt something almost like a collision, as if he'd smacked into the ground.

Izumo snapped his eyes open with a gasp. At first, he didn't recognize his surroundings, but years of instinct took over even while his brain was rebooting. He could smell the thick, leafy scent of the forest. The wooden and thatched buildings were familiar to him. This was the chunin standby station. He was in Konoha.

For a horrible, terrifying moment everything was silent. Just because he was in Konoha didn't mean that he had gone back in time. Where were the sounds of the birds, the bustle of the city? The leaf village should be alive, even in the dead of night. He squeezed his eyes closed. What if Obito hadn't succeeded in sending him backwards in time? What if he'd just translocated him to their Konoha? Was Izumo now the only person alive free of Kaguya's thrall? He could feel himself start to breathe too rapidly, when all the sudden he felt hands on his shoulders, shaking him somewhat roughly. His eyes flew open.

"Izumo!" he heard the person in front of him call, and realized with a start that he _could_ in fact hear just fine. His senses had just taken a while to completely adjust after their trip through time and space. With a hot rush of relief, the chunin listened intently to all the sounds he had been trying to hear the first time around. It sounded like there were hundreds of shinobi busily making their way through the area, talking amongst themselves. Izumo felt like sobbing in joy. Wherever, or whenever he was, it certainly wasn't in the same place or time as Kaguya.

"Izumo, are you all right?" the man in front of him repeated, and he jerked a little bit, surprised. With a start, he realized that it was Kotetsu. Of course it was. If this really was the past, then there would be no one else that he would be with.

Almost on auto pilot, he replied "Yeah, Ko'," the nickname felt sacred on his tongue. "I'm just feeling a bit dizzy." After he'd said it, Izumo realized that it was true. He'd been feeling terrible even before (later? In the future?). His chakra had been drained by the World Tree and according to Obito he wasn't even entirely human anymore. However, the trip through time and space disoriented him further. It was only pure willpower keeping him upright at this point.

"Are you sure?" Kotetsu asked briefly, an odd look in his eye. He seemed almost distant, in a way, and backed up quickly. Izumo was used to his friend crowding him a lot more physically, especially when he wasn't feeling well. "You've picked an awful time to get sick, pal. We've gotta go."

Go? Where did they have to go? He couldn't ask that question, knowing it would be too suspicious. Alright, Izumo, are you a ninja or not? He glanced around quickly, taking in all the data he could observe. The trees outside the building still had all their leaves, and few to no budding flowers could be seen. That meant it was roughly summertime. Now, what year was it? Izumo glanced at Kotetsu's hands. A couple of years ago (a couple of years from now, maybe?) Kotetsu had gotten a small scar on his left hand. It wasn't there. Okay, so he was at least two years in the past.

(He was _in the past_. Izumo could hardly believe it, but he pushed the panic down. There was no time).

He needed more information. Izumo glanced around at the shinobi making their way through the chunin standby station. Their movements were frantic. This wasn't just some sort of event. Something was going on, something bad, judging by the furious looks on their faces. Okay, given Kotetsu's hair style and lack of the scar, he was somewhere between two and four years in the past. The major, village wide events that had involved chunin running around (it was a manhunt of some kind, he recognized from the hand signs and protocols being followed) were few in number. There had been the Invasion, but that happened during the day; it was currently night time. The only thing that came to mind was…

"Naruto," Izumo gasped.

"Yeah," Kotetsu said, sounding like he was commiserating with his partner. "I can't believe that brat stole the Sacred Scroll! After everything we've done for the little monster."

Izumo was shocked at the vitriol in Kotetsu's voice, and remembered with a flush of shame that he'd said similar things about the boy, before he knew better. "We need to find him," he muttered.

"We're the best guys for the job!" the other chunin chimed in. "With our combo, we can knock him out, no problem." Kotetsu suddenly grinned slyly. "Hey, maybe the Hokage will be so grateful to us that he'll promote us to jounin!"

Izumo could feel his head spinning. All he could think about was Naruto. The boy was their only hope at defeating Kaguya, and he was in danger. If he'd been thinking straight, he'd remember that things turned out alright the first time around, but he couldn't leave it up to chance. "C'mon, Kamizuki, think… _think_." Kotetsu stayed silent, likely trusting his partner's ability to reason through situations like these.

This night was legendary amongst Konoha shinobi. It had been the night that their hero, Naruto, had learned his most famous technique. The details were a bit fuzzy, because of the people involved, only the boy was willing to gossip about it. Plus, like any story of that nature, it had gotten told and retold hundreds of times, shifting a bit constantly. However, Izumo had been one of the chunin on patrol that night (this night), and so he had the details a little fresher than most. Where had Naruto gone? He snapped his fingers, excited with the realization.

"C'mon, Kotetsu, time to go!"

His partner grinned. "Alright Izumo! Lead the way."

He took the two of them outside the village, towards the training grounds that should contain the missing boy and scroll. Izumo felt like he was running purely on adrenaline. He barely had enough chakra to function, but whenever he considered stopping, he had a sudden vision of Naruto, dead, and the world being destroyed by the Rabbit Goddess. It spurred him to go a little faster, even.

Neither he nor Kotetsu spoke, both of them used to the routine of chasing after a mark. They were sent together on retrieval missions quite often, as their skill set was well suited for it. Izumo was glad, because he didn't think he could spare the breath to speak. As they reached their destination, he slowed down a little in caution. They plunged carefully into the woods and he let the other chunin take the lead. His partner was by far the superior tracker, but even Izumo could see the path they needed to follow. Whoever had made it clearly didn't bother to cover it up whatsoever. He just hoped they weren't too late.

The two chunin sped up as they followed the trail, and Kotetsu was visibly thrumming with anticipation. He could see the excitement on his partner's face. The other man probably thought that corning an academy student would be easy work, but Izumo knew that there was far worse waiting for them. They burst into a clearing just in time to see the boy in question attacking his teacher. Izumo furrowed his brow in confusion, because it was _Iruka_ that Naruto was fighting, not Mizuki. Kotetsu leapt between the two of them, causing Naruto to disengage from the chunin.

"Oh, you're in trouble now, brat!" Kotetsu spat. "You really think you can take on three _real_ ninja?"

Naruto's eyes widened in shock and he backed up a step. "No wait, Kotetsu! You don't understand."

Something was wrong here. There was a feeling, like he was forgetting something… a part of the story was missing. Also, he wasn't aware that Naruto was familiar enough with his partner to address him by name. Izumo's eyes widened in realization. "No! Kotetsu, watch out!" he cried, but it was too late. The other chunin snapped to attention, eyes locking onto Naruto's hands, looking for a threat, but he had the wrong person.

The point of a Fuuma shuriken protruded from Kotetsu's shoulder. 'Iruka' had stabbed it into him. His partner had enough battle instinct to turn enough so that the blow was incapacitating rather than fatal, though. Iruka didn't use that type of weapon, only…

Naruto threw himself at the chunin, causing the other man to retreat, dropping the transformation technique and revealing himself to be Mizuki in disguise. Their enemy chuckled darkly. "Sorry Hagane… If I hadn't missed then you wouldn't be suffering so much."

Kotetsu stumbled to his feet and spat on the ground angrily. Mizuki turned to Naruto. "I have to admit I'm impressed, demon. How did you know that I wasn't Iruka?"

The boy shook his head. "Because, you bastard, _I'm_ Iruka." With that, he dispelled the illusion, and where a short blonde boy had been before, a taller chunin now stood, vibrating with rage. Izumo leapt to Kotetsu's side, pushing him down gently by his uninjured shoulder.

"Kotetsu stay back," he hissed, frantic. "Leave this to the two of us. You're too injured to fight." He was just glad that Mizuki hadn't had a chance to rip his weapon out of the other chunin's body. He definitely would've died of blood loss then.

"Help me, Izumo! Quick, use your-"

"Syrup trap?" Mizuki taunted, cutting Iruka off. "You idiots. I know all of your techniques. Nothing you do will be any use. If you want to live, give up the brat and hand me the Scroll of Seals!"

"Never!" Izumo shouted. Like hell he was going to let this bastard get away with hurting Kotetsu. He was somewhat glad that Mizuki had given him an excuse not to use his water ninjutsu though. There was no way he had enough chakra to pull it off.

As if it was some kind of signal, all three of them (minus Kotetsu) jumped forward. Izumo veered left, trying to flank Mizuki's back, while Iruka engaged him from the front. He did his best to slash at the traitor's neck with a kunai, but he didn't even have enough chakra available to enhance his body. Mizuki avoided both his and Iruka's blows with ease, as if they were genin rather than experienced ninja. Izumo suddenly remembered that Mizuki was supposed to be promoted to jounin, and was only held back for political reasons, rather than by any lack of skill on his part.

"You fools!" Mizuki snapped. "Just run! You can't beat me."

"We're not going to let you have the Scroll," insisted Iruka.

"Why are you two protecting that monster?" screamed the traitor. "Izumo, Iruka, he killed both of your families."

"Shut up!" Izumo snapped. "Naruto is a hero! He's protecting everyone." For a split second he forgot that he was in the past, and that none of the events like the Chunin Exam or Pein's attack had occurred yet. Had he given up the game so easily?

"Oh don't be naïve, Izumo. You can't seriously believe that tripe the Old Man feeds us about the kid _protecting_ us from the demon fox? You've seen the way he acts. All he cares about is chaos and mischief. All that rage and hatred… He's only capable of destruction. The Nine-tails will use that scroll to kill us all if it gets the chance."

Iruka scowled at him, before bowing his head. "You're right, Mizuki."

Izumo did a double take. Iruka had always been Naruto's biggest supporter. He couldn't believe that the chunin would betray him now. He tightened his grip on his kunai. This must be some sort of trick.

Iruka's head rose slowly, eyes burning. "The Nine-tailed fox _would_ use the power in that scroll to destroy us… But Naruto's not the Fox! That's not who he is. He is _not_ a monster. He's a good, hardworking kid who puts his all into everything he does! Yeah, he messes up sometimes, and everyone gives him a hard time… but his suffering just makes him even stronger! That's what separates him from the beast. So you're wrong. He's nothing like the Nine-tailed fox. He's Naruto Uzumaki, of the village hidden in the leaves!" cried Iruka, before he sprang forward and resumed his attack on Mizuki.

The older man just kicked the injured teacher away, before he whirled on Izumo. "Sorry it had to be like this," he said, sounding insincere. The man thrusted another oversized Fuuma shuriken towards him, and Izumo parried. Ninja combat was like a dance, somewhat. Mizuki slashed at him from his shoulder to his left hip, and Izumo pivoted on his left leg, pushing backwards to avoid the attack. In response Mizuki kicked out at his ankle, trying to break the fragile joint. They went back and forth, trading taijutsu techniques and matching each other blow for blow. Still, Izumo could tell that he was losing. It was only a matter of time before his exhaustion got the better of him and he left an opening too large to defend.

He stumbled, and his eyes widened in panic as Mizuki smirked, smug. Was this it? Was he going to waste his second chance by being killed not by Madara, or even the Akatsuki, but a measly chunin traitor? Suddenly, Mizuki aborted his blow and cried out in pain. There was a kunai protruding from his shoulder. Izumo followed the line of its trajectory back towards Kotetsu, whose hand was extended.

"You want to die first, cripple! That can be arranged," snarled the traitorous chunin.

"You'll have to go through me first," Iruka cried, stepping in front of the downed ninja.

"With pleasure!" Mizuki used the body flicker technique to move towards the scarred chunin faster than Izumo could follow. Shit, he couldn't catch up in time. Iruka braced himself. He didn't look like he was in any shape to defeat Mizuki, and he was a worse fighter than Izumo. There was no way he'd be able to do anything but slow the traitor down.

Suddenly, a small, orange-clad form bashed into Mizuki, sending him stumbling backwards. It was Naruto!

"If you touch my sensei… I'll kill you!" the boy snarled.

The man in front of him laughed derisively. "You can't even pass the academy graduation exam, demon. I could kill you with a single blow."

Naruto's stance widened. "Try it! I'll return any hit a thousand fold!" The boy raised two fingers on each hand, and crossed them perpendicularly in a distinctive sign.

Izumo could feel his breath catch. Could it be…?

"Shadow clone!" cried Naruto.

Despite having seen the jinchuriki in action before, Izumo couldn't help but gape, impressed. Suddenly hundreds of copies of Naruto appeared all over the forest. He knew that he would die of chakra exhaustion if he tried making even a tiny fraction of these clones. Mizuki looked around in disbelief as he was suddenly surrounded by orange forms. They were on all sides of him, even hanging above him in the trees. They all moved as one, closing in on the traitor and punching him countless times. Izumo almost winced in sympathy for the beat down, but he got a glance of Kotetsu out of the corner of his eye. The man was gaping at the scene in disbelief, but the sight of the wound in his shoulder made Izumo's blood boil.

Before long, Naruto dispelled all of his clones, leaving behind a beaten and bloody Mizuki twitching on the ground. "Oops," the boy chuckled awkwardly, scratching at the back of his head with his right hand. "I went a little overboard."

"Yeah," Iruka agreed, looking stunned. Izumo made his way over to the beaten form on the ground, cautious. It was apparent though that this was no trick. The chunin was out cold, bleeding from multiple wounds all over his body.

Seeing that the traitor was taken care of, Izumo made his way to his partner. "Are you alright?" he asked softly.

"I'll live," the other man said shortly, wincing. He nodded towards Naruto. "Damn. I wouldn't have believed that if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. Who would've thought?"

Izumo nodded, but he was used to Naruto pulling off impossible things from his experiences in the future (it was still strange to think about). The boy seemed to do it every time he turned around. He glanced over to the orange-clad ninja. It was still disconcerting to see him so small. He was used to the kid being a teenager, not tall exactly but with a certain strength to him. This Naruto probably would barely make it to Izumo's sternum.

"Iruka!" he called. "I'm going to take Kotetsu to the hospital. Will you be alright handing things here?"

"Yes," the other chunin agreed, before turning back to his pupil.

"Aw, Izumo, you don't have to worry about me."

"If we don't get you to the hospital soon you'll probably bleed out!" he snapped, irritated. Kotetsu huffed in irritation, but his lack of protest betrayed how injured he really was. Izumo gathered the other man in his arms, carrying him piggy-back to reduce the strain on his wound. As they left the clearing, the last thing he could hear clearly was: "Come here, Naruto… I have something to give you."

Izumo was sitting on a chair in the hospital waiting room, elbows resting on his knees, cradling his head in his hands. He'd known that Kotetsu's wounds were bad. Obviously. The man had had a weapon sticking all the way through his body. Still, he hadn't really fully let himself understand just how severe it was. He was still used to having Lady Tsunade in the village. Even though she was the Hokage, she would always take the time to heal anyone who needed it, and even a terrible wound like Kotetsu's would be a piece of cake for her.

It had only taken one look at the medic's face when he brought the chunin in for him to figure out that things weren't going to be that easy. They were each other's next-of-kin, so the doctor had briefed him on the situation. Luckily the weapon had missed Kotetsu's heart, but it nicked his lung and it was only due to the man's skill with Yang chakra and bodily enhancements that kept the organ from collapsing. There was also, obviously, severe damage to the muscle and tendons of his shoulder, as well as severed nerves. Because they'd gotten to the hospital relatively quickly, and the wound was clean (no tearing or grinding), Kotetsu had a decent prognosis. Soft tissue damage was fairly easy for med nins to deal with. The nerve damage was harder, but still manageable. Still, none of them were Tsunade, or even Shizune. While they could heal him, it would take time. His partner would be off duty for at least a month, and in rehab a lot longer.

And Izumo was exhausted. During the last twenty-four hours (in the future and in the past) he'd fought a war, escaped an inescapable illusion, had his chakra (and his humanity) sucked out of him by an immortal God Tree, fled from the demon woman who had apparently birthed the legendary Sage of Six Paths (as well as all of ninjutsu in general) gone back in time, and now he almost got his best friend killed due to his incompetence. Izumo bitterly wished that someone—anyone—else had been the one to escape the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Literally a fresh-faced genin would probably do a better job at saving the world than he would. His first action in the past had been to nearly get himself and Kotetsu killed. If he hadn't gotten saved by a child who wasn't even a genin yet (granted, Naruto defied labels and expectations) the future would be damned to repeat itself. He groaned.

Someone cleared their throat pointedly. Izumo glanced up. "Doctor Yamada!" he started, standing up quickly. "Is Kotetsu's surgery finished already?"

The man just looked at him disapprovingly. "Chunin Hagane is still in the operating room right now. I told you that it would take the better part of the night. I also recall telling you to go home and get some rest."

"I can't leave Kotetsu!" he protested. "It was my fault that he ended up here in the first place."

The doctor frowned, but didn't look angry. "It's not my place to decide that. However, as a medic it _is_ my responsibility to look after everyone in my hospital, and that includes you. You look like you're dead on your feet, Kamizuki. You won't be any help to your friend if you collapse."

Izumo opened his mouth to protest, but Yamada cut him off before he could start.

"Let me make this very clear, chunin," the doctor began, emphasizing his rank. In the field, the doctor would be a civilian, but in the hospital he outranked everyone but the Hokage and a few key other village officials. "You need rest. You can either go home to your own bed, or, if you insist on staying at the hospital I will admit you and assign you a physician to attend to your health." He paused, staring down at the younger man. "I would much prefer the latter option, considering the preliminary reports from the medics that gave you first aid, but with so many resources being spent on Hagane I can't afford to waste my time on someone who isn't willing to cooperate."

Izumo winced. The man was harsh, but he certainly knew how to get his way. If leaving would be the best thing to ensure that Kotetsu got all the care he needed, then he would body flicker out, chakra exhaustion or no. Also, he figured that it wouldn't be a good idea to have an overnight stay at the hospital unless strictly necessary. If the World Tree ended up changing his blood type or something crazy, then he'd be sent straight to an interrogation room. "I understand, Doctor. I'll go get some rest."

Yamada nodded. "Good. Visiting hours begin promptly at eight AM. _If_ Hagane's condition changes, I'll send a messenger to your residence. However, there is virtually no chance that he will deteriorate enough for that to happen."

Izumo grimaced. Kotetsu was out of danger of dying. Only his career was at stake now. The chunin exited the hospital and slowly made his way to his apartment. It was only after he ended up at a bakery that he realized his mistake. His apartment complex didn't exist yet. It had been constructed after Konoha had been rebuilt due to Pein's attack. The chunin sighed and turned around, before smacking his face. The apartment to which he was headed had been purchased after the combined Sand/Sound Invasion. Shit. Okay, it took him a moment to orient himself but after that he ended up at the right place.

He had a difficult time getting the key into the door. Izumo's hands were shaking hard from the combination of adrenaline crash and chakra exhaustion. He almost gave up and kicked the door in, except for the fact that someone would doubtlessly come running. Getting the key into the lock almost made him sob in relief. He felt pathetic. Izumo jerked the door open and stepped inside, toeing the door shut without even bothering to lock it. He collapsed onto his bed, bloody clothes and all.

He felt himself trembling from head to toe. It wasn't the first time that Izumo'd had a panic attack. Every ninja had one at one time or another. It was so common that they learned the common signs and treatments in the Academy. Still, given the very nature of the condition he couldn't keep a level head long enough to recall the first step.

Why had Obito chosen him? This was pointless. He was destined to screw this up even worse that he already had… It was…

When Izumo woke up, he felt like he was dying. He'd rarely felt this terrible in his entire life. However, strangely, he somehow also felt _better_ than he had the night before, so at least he was improving. He didn't want to get up; he felt like it would be a perfectly good idea to sleep the entire day, but with a start he remembered Kotetsu in the hospital and jerked to his feet before he even registered what he was doing.

The chunin got to the door of his bedroom before he caught a glance of himself in the mirror out of the corner of his eye. He was pale, hair askew, with blood, dirt, and sod all over his uniform, which looked (accurately) like it had been slept in. In short, he looked like he had just gotten back from a mission that went terribly wrong. If he stepped outside looking like this, he'd get sent to a holding cell or maybe to a month's worth of mandatory therapy sessions if he was lucky.

Izumo threw himself into a cold shower, to jolt himself awake, and then changed into a fresh uniform. The clean, pressed clothes (because of course he made sure all of his things were neatly put away) made him feel a little bit more presentable at least. It was a little after noon. He'd slept for ten hours, so it was long after visiting hours had started. Kotetsu was probably wondering what was keeping him.

The chunin did a quick self-evaluation about his chakra levels. He was still low but he'd be alright to go the quick way, at least. Izumo opened his window and leapt from rooftop to rooftop, marveling at the familiar-yet-unfamiliar layout of the village. He'd spent the majority of his life going through the rooftops the way they were now, but the last couple of years (for him) had seen its skyline look significantly different. The nostalgia was almost overwhelming. As he was nearing the hospital, his stomach grumbled loudly, and Izumo realized that Kotetsu was probably causing a load of trouble. The man despised hospital food, and so Izumo would always bring him a snack.

The brunet carefully jumped down to the streets, careful not to startle any civilians (although most of them were accustomed to shinobi showing up at their sides at any given moment). He approached the nearest food vendor, which happened to be Ichiraku Ramen. That was fortunate. Kotetsu adored anything that could never pass for nutritional. He made his way to the stand, but suddenly froze. Pushing aside the curtains and exiting the restaurant was none other than Naruto Uzumaki.

Izumo wasn't sure why he was so surprised. Teuchi had made his fortune in the future from his reputation as Naruto's favorite chef. It was no secret around the village (even before the boy had become famous for good reasons) that the ramen stand was the jinchuriki's favorite place. The kid had terrible perception of his surroundings, given that he didn't even seem to notice the chunin standing still, staring at him. The genin (he noticed the headband now on the blonde's forehead, and suddenly remembered that he'd been promoted irregularly after his capture of Mizuki) was about to pass him.

"Naruto," he called out, not really certain what he was doing.

The kid turned to look at him curiously. His brow was furrowed and head cocked cutely to the side, before his face cleared up in recognition. "Hey!" Naruto yelled. Izumo winced; the boy really was quite loud. "You're that guy from last night, Iduno or something, right?"

"Uh, it was Izumo actually, Izumo Kamizuki," he corrected.

"Oh hey Izumo! My name's Naruto Uzumaki!" he cried with a bright grin. There was no hint of wariness in his gaze. Rather, there was an odd gleam of affection there. Suddenly, the chunin remembered that he'd called the kid a hero last night. He flushed, simultaneously hoping that the blonde had heard it, and feeling a bit embarrassed and wishing the kid hadn't. "Are you going to Ichiraku's place? It's totally the best restaurant in the entire village!"

Izumo heard Teuchi chuckle and say "You're too kind" from behind the curtains, but he didn't respond. Originally, of course, he _had_ been intending to go to the stand. They'd started attracting a bit of a crowd though. Everyone knew what had happened last night, or at least, they knew that Naruto was supposed to have stolen the Scroll of Seals, and that for some reason he hadn't gotten in trouble. The nosy people around him were probably trying to overhear some details. Suddenly, Izumo realized that they were staring at Naruto with disgust and disapproval. It had been so long since he'd seen those glares that he'd forgotten how the boy had lived during his childhood. He felt a hot rush of shame, both for himself and his entire village.

"Hey… uh, Izumo. You okay?" the genin asked tentatively. Izumo realized that he had been staring at Naruto. He remembered what Iruka had said the night before, about Naruto growing from his suffering. It wasn't right that the boy had had to be in pain in the first place.

Almost before he understood what he was doing, he bowed low to the boy. It wasn't a polite 'thank you' kind of bow, or a respectful 'you're my superior' kind of bow. Rather, his head was at a level with his waist. This was a supplication, the kind that was reserved for either a show of the greatest shame or the greatest gratitude imaginable. In this case it was actually both.

"I am alright Naruto. Myself and my partner… we're both okay, and it's because of you."

"Woah!" the Uzumaki cried out, surprised. He felt small hands on his shoulders, lifting him upwards. Rather than comfort him, it just reminded him of how young the boy was, and how much he'd already done for them all despite that. "C'mon man, you don't have to do that!" insisted the genin. Izumo complied, but his point had already been made. Such a gesture wasn't normally made in public, and people were already whispering around them, staring intently.

"Naruto," he said loudly, partially to speak over the chatter and partially to speak over the boy himself. He hadn't realized it when he started, but he _needed_ the kid to listen to him. "Don't belittle what you did." Izumo looked intently into Naruto's blue eyes. The child looked uncomfortable, but didn't break eye contact.

"Last night you saved my life. You saved the life of my partner, and of course, Iruka's as well. There is nothing I can say to thank you enough for what you did." He hadn't gotten a chance to thank the teen after Pein's attack in the future either. The poor kid was suddenly so popular, and Izumo hadn't wanted to be another sycophant taking away his time from the people whom he cared about. He figured now was as good a time as any for that gratitude as well, even if the boy didn't remember it happening.

"I am ashamed," Izumo continued. He refused to be embarrassed by the people around him. Every one of them should be on their knees with thanks. The responsibility on this one boy's shoulders… he had saved their lives so many times. He had literally died trying to save the world. Like he'd been hit with a hammer between the eyes, Izumo finally understood what he was trying to say. "I'm ashamed," he continued softer. This wasn't for the gawkers around him anymore, but for Naruto himself. "That I wasn't strong enough to protect the people I love." It was always Naruto. Izumo did his best (which didn't amount to much) but in the end it always came down to Naruto saving them. "Last night I could only watch, but I'm going to get stronger. I swear it. Next time…" he paused. "Next time we can fight together, as comrades."

Izumo stared at the genin for a little longer, but the blonde seemed at a loss. It was a rare sight, seeing the chatterbox completely silent, and he appreciated the fact that _he_ was the one who'd affected the young hero so much. It made him feel like maybe he wasn't so useless after all. "Naruto, you're going to be a fantastic Hokage someday," he finished.

As if those were the magic words, the boy beamed at him so brightly that it made the sun seem dim. The kid launched himself at Izumo, quite literally tackling him around the waist with a tight hug. "Thanks Izumo!" he yelled. Pretty much every statement from Naruto at twelve years old was a yell. The jinchuriki stepped backwards, and grinned up at the older man. "I'm going to get stronger too! So that I can protect you and Iruka-sensei."

Feeling incredibly proud and touched to be counted among the boy's precious people, Izumo reached forward and ruffled the boy's hair. "I'm sure you will," he agreed. "But right now I need to get my friend some ramen. He's in the hospital and he gets very grouchy when he has to eat the food there," Izumo explained. "Do you want to help me take it to him?"

"Sure!" the genin agreed, and the two of them headed into the stand (or back into the stand, in Naruto's case), ignoring all the bystanders watching their interaction.

"Hi there, Izumo," Teuchi greeted casually, but his voice sounded gruff with emotion. He'd surely overheard their exchange outside. "I heard Kotetsu's in the hospital. Figured I'd be seeing you in here sooner or later. What'll it be?"

"Hey Teuchi," replied the chunin. "Can I get a chicken ramen, and one sushi for Kotetsu, both to go?"

"Of course. Ayame, you heard the man: one chicken and one sushi."

His daughter nodded swiftly. She looked misty-eyed and the hand in front of her mouth didn't do a very good job of hiding her smile. They waited in silence as the father/daughter combo prepared the food, but it wasn't uncomfortable. When the man brought the bowls to the counter, Izumo pulled out his wallet, but the chef shook his hand and pushed the money back towards the chunin. "This one's on the house," he said simply.

Part of him wanted to protest. He could afford two bowls of ramen. However, he understood the gesture, and Izumo figured that Teuchi was the kind of man who would stick to his principles, and it wouldn't do either of them any good to argue about something so petty. "Thank you," he said simply. The man nodded solemnly at him.

He and Naruto made their way to the hospital, which was only a short walk from the ramen stand. Izumo eyed the way that the boy was swinging the food around enthusiastically as he walked, and took a moment to be grateful for the fact that the soup was in a sealed container. The genin chattered on about anything that came to his mind.

"Hey Izumo! I bet you know some awesome techniques. Will you teach me?"

The chunin blinked at the boy's forwardness. It really was quite rude to ask another shinobi for their techniques without any reciprocal offering. Ninjutsu were the lifeblood of a shinobi. They were secrets, passed down from generation to generation in families, or created after years of hard work. In their line of business one didn't simply hand out secrets like that. It was one of the reasons that tensions with the Uchiha clan had been high before… well.

"Uh, I'm not sure that I'm the best one to teach you, Naruto. After all, you're the one that saved me!" he deflected carefully.

"Oh yeah," the kid mused, as if he'd honestly forgotten. Izumo blinked. Naruto was certainly an… unconventional shinobi. The boy looked at him suddenly, a bright grin on his face. "Do you want to learn the Shadow Clone technique? It's really cool!"

Izumo stopped in his tracks, looking around nervously as if an Anbu member would come and detain him on the spot. "Uh, Naruto, that's a forbidden technique. You shouldn't offer to teach that to people."

"Ohhhh, right," the boy nodded. "The Old Man said something like that!"

Izumo at rubbed the back of his head, chuckling awkwardly. Okay, so their hero wasn't the brightest, but he was twelve. Everyone was stupid at twelve years old. The two of them made their way into the hospital and to the admissions desk.

"Hello," Izumo smiled at the receptionist. "I'm Chunin Kamizuki. Could you please let me know what room Chunin Hagane is in?"

The woman gave a skeptical look at Naruto, but thankfully didn't make a big deal out of it. "Chunin Hagane is located in room 114," she said.

"Alright!" cried the genin. "Let's go see Hagade!" He set off towards the right side of the desk at a determined pace.

"Naruto!" Izumo called. Once he had the boy's attention the chunin pointed to his left, towards the sign that read "Rooms 100-120". The kid laughed, embarrassed, and set off in the correct direction.

"And it's Kotetsu _Hagane_ by the way," corrected the chunin.

"Hagane, got it!"

They reached room 114 and Izumo knocked softly (not wanting to be too loud in case his partner was sleeping) and pushed the door open.

A loud cry of "Izumo!" greeted the two ninja as they walked in the room. Kotetsu was on a hospital bed, looking a little pale but cheerful. He was dressed in a hospital gown, so Izumo couldn't see his wound, but his left arm was bound tightly to his body, probably to keep him from moving it and aggravating his shoulder injury. "Woah! Did you bring me ramen? You're the best, buddy."

"Yeah, I got shrimp, your favorite. I think Naruto has it."

The boy in question was half-hidden behind the chunin's body, one hand curled into the fabric of the flak jacket at his back. It wasn't like the kid to be shy, but Izumo figured he didn't actually know Naruto all that well. He reached back and gently prompted the genin to move forward by planting his palm in the center of the boy's back and nudging him. The kid shuffled towards the bed, holding the ramen out in front of him like it was a sacrifice to an angry god.

"Uh, here's your ramen, Mr. Hagane," he said, pronouncing the three syllables of Kotetsu's name carefully. The genin glanced over at Izumo as if he were seeking approval.

Suddenly Izumo understood what was going on. He nodded and smiled at the boy approvingly. Naruto didn't have much in the way of social graces, but he knew enough to understand that Kotetsu was important to Izumo. The kid probably figured that if Kotetsu hated him, then Izumo would do so as well. Sadly, the chunin guessed that it wasn't the first time someone had broken off a friendship with the boy because their peer told them to.

"Oh man!" cried Kotetsu, grinning. "First you save my sorry ass in a fight, and now you're bringing me culinary salvation? You're my new hero, kid!"

Naruto's back was to Izumo, but the man could guess what his face looked like based on the boy's posture. Kotetsu looked a bit baffled at the boy, probably taken aback by the force of the genin's billion-watt smile. "Ramen is the best food in the entire world!" he shouted. Kotetsu winced a bit at the volume and looked at the door nervously, but didn't scold the Uzumaki. "Everyone should have it all the time, especially when they're sick!"

"I definitely agree with you there, buddy. Hey, could you open it up for me? I've only got one hand."

Naruto enthusiastically (a little too enthusiastically, given the fact that some broth was spilling out over the sides) opened up the container, and placed it on the chunin's lap. Kotetsu used the chopsticks to eat the soup, while the two of them cheerfully discussed all of the various merits of ramen.

Just yesterday Kotetsu had been cursing the boy's name along with every other citizen of the village. Izumo knew that the man was a good person, capable of forgiveness and kindness, but it was another thing seeing it directed towards the kid who needed it so badly (plus, it made all of his paternal (okay, maternal) instincts twinge). He loved Kotetsu so much sometimes that he could hardly breathe. To distract himself, he opened his own meal and started digging in.

Before long, they were interrupted by the door opening once more. Yamada entered the room, and Izumo was impressed at how put together he looked. The chunin assumed that the medic had spent the majority of the night looking after his friend, but there was no evidence of exhaustion on the other man's face. The doctor frowned in disapproval at the empty bowls of ramen, but made no comment, thankfully.

"Good afternoon," he said simply. "I'm glad to see that you got some rest, Kamizuki."

Izumo flushed. "Uh, yes sir, thank you."

The man nodded sharply in acknowledgement before moving to Kotetsu's side and peeling his gown back, muttering over his bandages. He glanced over at Izumo before his eyes settled on the orange-clad genin. "Naruto Uzumaki, correct?"

"Believe it!" the boy yelled cheerfully.

"Ah. Lord Hokage sent a messenger to the hospital to let you know that you're late for your ninja registration photo."

Naruto's eyes widened comically. "Oh no! I totally had a whole plan! Gotta run, Izumo. See ya later!" With that, the boy literally sprinted out of the hospital room, Yamada rolling his eyes in exasperation at his back.

"Good, now that that's over with, we can discuss your condition, Chunin Hagane," he continued, no-nonsense.

Izumo and Kotetsu sobered, looking at the doctor seriously.

"The surgery was a complete success. We expect that you will have a full recovery."

Kotetsu sagged back into his pillows, and Izumo felt, to his embarrassment, tears of relief prickling at his eyes.

"However," Yamada continued sternly. "This is going to be a long process. I've recommended to the Hokage that you be taken off of active duty for two months. Your physical therapy will continue for at least a year. Make no mistake, you're lucky to even have use of your arm at all. This is no laughing matter."

"Of course!" Kotetsu agreed quickly. "I'll do whatever it takes to recover. And I'm sure that Izumo will yell at me if I step even a toe out of line!" he grinned.

Yamada glanced at him almost approvingly. From the stern doctor, Izumo counted it as a win. The man was clearly used to dealing with stubborn ninja who didn't know what was best for themselves. "Good. We're going to keep you in the hospital for a week," he was interrupted by Kotetsu groaning, but continued speaking as if there was no interjection. "To ensure that no infection sets in. We want to monitor you carefully for that time. You will begin physical therapy in one month from today exactly, unless your attending physician—that is me—decides that it will take more or less time for you to convalesce appropriately."

Having said his piece, the doctor began exiting the room, before stopping as if he suddenly remembered something. "Oh, and Chunin Kamizuki, the Third asked me to let you know that he wishes to see you when you're done visiting Hagane. He wants your report from last night."

Izumo stared at the doctor's retreating back. Oh crap. He'd known—intellectually speaking—that the Third was still alive, but it was another thing to really _realize_ it. He was going to have to report to the Third Hokage, the Professor, and try to convince him that he wasn't suspicious, or overwhelmed to see the man alive…

"Hey, Izumo, you look like you've seen a ghost," Kotetsu called, concerned.

"Ah… It's just been a rough night," excused Izumo. His partner's eyes softened.

"Yeah, you're telling me."

He stared at his partner. Izumo wanted to apologize for getting him in danger, but he knew that the man wouldn't understand. From the other chunin's perspective, it would seem like Izumo hadn't done anything wrong. Kotetsu didn't understand that if things had played out the way there were supposed to, he wouldn't have almost die due to Izumo's inability to stop a simple chunin traitor. Instead he distracted himself with something he could talk to the other man about.

"Thank you for being so kind to Naruto."

"He's a good kid." Kotetsu waved his good hand negligently. "He saved my life and yours last night." A mischievous look appeared on the chunin's face. "Besides, if you're going to bow to him in public and tell him that he'd make a great Hokage, you must see something in him. You've always been way smarter than me, so I figured I'd might as well start sucking up to him now," joked his partner.

Izumo chuckled and covered his eyes with his hand. He was a little embarrassed but he wasn't going to take back what he'd said. "We literally came straight here after that. How've you heard about it already?"

"Hah! You know how gossip travels in a ninja village. I doubt there's anyone in Konoha who doesn't know about it by now." His face sobered. "But seriously… we all misjudged that kid. It says a lot about you that you figured it out first."

He opened his mouth to protest. Izumo hardly was the first person to believe in Naruto, but in this time it wasn't far off, so he couldn't exactly say the things he wanted to. Instead he shut his jaw with a click and stared at a stain on the wall next to Kotetsu's head.

"Anyway," the bandaged man continued. "You've seen me, brought me food, heard my—thankfully positive—prognosis and everything. The Third wants to see you so you'd better make your way over to the Tower!"

Obligingly, Izumo stood up. "Are you sure there isn't anything else you need?" he asked, hovering.

"No!" Kotetsu laughed. "Get! Go! I know that delaying an order from the Hokage makes you feel like your skin is crawling with ants. Get out of my hair."

Izumo smiled and left the room. As he shut the door he whispered to himself: "I won't let you down next time, Kotetsu."

A/N: Some dialogue from this is lifted directly or adapted from the first chapter of the manga. Also, if you're wondering how Sarutobi knew to send a messenger to the hospital to find Konoha, it's because he's a mother f****n boss.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Sitting in front of the doors to the Hokage's office was an intimidating experience, even if you didn't have anything to hide. Izumo had grown used to the feeling after years of serving as the Fifth's errand boy alongside Kotetsu, but looking at the imposing wooden doors now made him feel like a fresh genin who'd failed a D-ranked mission. On the short walk to the large, red domed administration building, he'd frantically considered his options. If it had been Tsunade, Izumo wouldn't even consider trying to tell her about his fantastical journey through time. She was tough in a way the Third had never seemed to be. Even though he was probably the closest chunin in the village to the woman (discounting her apprentice) she had never shown him an ounce of mercy. He had no doubt that if she thought that he was insane or a threat to Konoha she would do whatever she felt was necessary, without hesitation.

Tsunade cared about all of her subjects, Izumo knew, but he couldn't afford to not be taken seriously, and she would have no reason to believe him. His story was so ridiculous that he wouldn't have bought it if he hadn't lived it himself. She had banished him and Kotetsu from her office for reasons as petty as disturbing her sake-drinking-time, and would suffer nothing that she deemed frivolous or silly. There was no way she would take him at face value, and there was nothing he could say or do would prove that he was from the future. He'd been a glorified gopher in the past (future?), and wasn't privy to any sort of sensitive knowledge that he could only get through incredible means.

The Third, however… Izumo had spent far less face-to-face time with the man than he had with Tsunade, but the older man had always had a way of connecting to his ninja that Tsunade didn't. Sarutobi was like a grandfather to every shinobi in the village. He'd been there at all of their graduations, handed out promotions and missions, and always asked about the details of their lives. The Third Hokage would have even less of a reason to believe him than the Fifth would, but Izumo couldn't help but feel more inclined to trust the man.

In the end, that impulse was what convinced him to keep his mouth shut for now. Izumo could understand Tsunade diagnosing him as crazy or whatever, but he couldn't imagine what it would feel like coming from Sarutobi. The man was the closest thing he had to a parental figure, since his had died during the Kyuubi attack. Knowing that the Third didn't trust him or have enough faith in his word would probably break his will, and he couldn't afford that. It was a silly excuse, and Izumo tried to rationalize his decision; if the Hokage imprisoned him (even in a psychiatric facility for his own good) the world was basically screwed. Still, he wasn't naïve enough to believe that the rational justification was the real reason that he decided not to tell the Third about his time traveling.

The doors to the Hokage's office opened, allowing a stuffy-looking dignitary to exit the room. The secretary at the door nodded to him. The Third had been expecting him, but he didn't have an actual appointment and so Izumo had had to wait until the meeting wrapped up. He'd had enough time to come up with what he felt were reasonable justifications for his actions during the past day. Gods only knew if they would stand up to the scrutiny of the Professor though. Izumo steadied himself before standing and making his way into the chamber.

His breath caught when he saw the Third in his chair, and he paused unconsciously. The traditional hat with the symbol for 'Fire' on it sat casually on the desk next to a few forms. The man himself was dressed in formal wear, as he always was (which was a bit of a surprise by itself. He was used to seeing Tsunade dressed in her preferred garb rather than the robes), and he was stooped over what looked to be a contract of some sort, puffing on his pipe thoughtfully. Izumo felt like he'd been punched in the gut. The last time he'd seen the man, the Hokage had been in a casket, and he'd felt like his entire world was crumbling around him. Seeing him alive and well was indescribable.

Sarutobi glanced up and smiled warmly at him. "Izumo! Come in and take a seat. I just have a few things to look over before we speak."

Almost on auto-pilot, the chunin did as instructed. He stared at his hands folded in his lap, waiting for the other man to finish. Bit by bit he tried to pull himself together.

"Sorry about that," the elder chuckled. "Lord Hitashi is a very impatient man, so I've found it best to simply get all of the paperwork done immediately. It saves me a headache later on. Now, tell me: how are you?"

"I am…" Izumo trailed off. Saying that he was 'alright' would be a lie, and he knew that the best way to convince someone that you were truthful was to outright lie as little as possible. "I'm disoriented," he eventually admitted.

Sarutobi leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands, fingers laced together. His easy smile dimmed a bit, and a concerned look appeared in his eyes. "Ah. I know that Kotetsu being injured must be very worrying for you."

Izumo nodded, grateful for the assumption.

"How is his prognosis?" the man continued.

"Doctor Yamada expects Kotetsu to make a complete recovery, given time and enough physical therapy," responded the chunin.

The Hokage relaxed a bit. "Excellent! I am very pleased to hear that. I'd been a bit concerned since you looked so unhappy," the man probed.

Izumo broke eye contact, staring at the crystal ball on the desk. He'd never actually figured out what its function was, now that he thought about it. Knowing that he'd eventually have to respond, he once more decided to be as truthful as possible. "I feel responsible for his injury," he murmured, embarrassed.

There was a pause. "I see," the man replied. "And why is it that you feel this way?" His tone was gentle, not sounding disbelieving nor condemning.

"I was useless in that fight," Izumo admitted, finally returning his gaze to the wrinkled face in front of him. "Kotetsu saved my life at one point- and that was after he'd been mortally wounded! My only offensive jutsu is useless when the enemy knows that it's coming and can avoid it. If it hadn't been for one kid that's not even a genin, then Kotetsu would be dead right now. Hell, _I'd_ probably be dead right now too, and Mizuki would have escaped with the Forbidden Scroll."

The Hokage took a puff of his pipe, and hummed thoughtfully. "You felt that you weren't strong enough to protect the people you love?"

Izumo flushed, recognizing the words that he'd told Naruto yesterday. He had no doubt that the wording was intentional, and that Sarutobi knew of his conversation with the boy. Nevertheless, he nodded. "I'm tired of being helpless." He paused, thinking about what exactly he was trying to say. "I want to be the one who protects Konoha for once." It was kind of embarrassing actually. Izumo remembered the vision that the Infinite Tsukuyomi had shown him. While they all had revolved around Kotetsu in one way or another, one of the illusions had featured him as a powerful warrior, capable of taking on even the Akatsuki. He _did_ want that. Izumo knew that being able to fight S-ranked criminals was unrealistic, but he was tired of sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing.

"Yes, Naruto told me as much," Sarutobi agreed.

Izumo blushed. "Ah… so he told you about what I said to him?"

"Of course. Naruto is a very… excitable child," the man said with an indulgent smile. The chunin nodded in acknowledgment. That was one way of describing the genin. "He always chatters to me about his day, and the interesting things that had happened. Generally those events tend to involve ramen or pranks, in one way or another." Sarutobi paused, breathing in tobacco from his pipe. He looked like he was very relaxed and casual, but there was a glint in his eyes that seemed sort of intent to Izumo, like he was being watched very carefully. "You know, when he told me about you… it was perhaps the happiest I'd ever seen him."

"The happiest…" Izumo repeated dumbly. "But I hardly did anything for him?"

The old man raised an eyebrow regally. "I do believe that you prostrated yourself in front of him in public?"

The younger man rubbed at the back of his head, embarrassed. His hands felt a bit sweaty, but he ignored the sensation. "It was nothing he didn't deserve," Izumo said quietly, almost like a whisper except for the fact that his words were perfectly clear. "Naruto saved Kotetsu's life. I could bow to him in the street every day and it would never make up for that."

Sarutobi stayed silent, staring at him pensively. The man's face was calm and neutral, and on anyone else the expression would seem peaceful. Izumo couldn't help but feel he was being analyzed in a way he'd never experienced before, even despite that fact. "According to Iruka, you referred to Naruto as a hero even before that."

It wasn't a question but the chunin could still tell that he was meant to respond. Alright, just keep telling the truth. "If I were in his situation," Izumo began, "I don't think that I could… I think that I would hate us," he admitted. It felt painful, in a way. His entire life had revolved around protecting Konoha. He couldn't imagine ever living in a world where he didn't love the village, but part of him knew that he wasn't as strong as Naruto. He wasn't sure he could keep loving a place that only ever treated him with scorn. "But Naruto… he still tries, no matter how hard it gets, no matter what his disadvantages are." That's why the Uzumaki would have been a thousand times more qualified to be sent back in time: it wasn't just his prowess in battle, but also his ability to make the best of any situation. Izumo couldn't do anything but mimic the boy's resolve.

"Naruto's the kind of person who would stand up to a grown man to save the people he cares about, the kind of person who believes so much in himself that he would overcome any odd to do what needs to be done. I think that part of me could see that even before I knew what he was capable of." Izumo liked to think that was true, anyway. His hindsight was so colored by his admiration of the kid that he couldn't really remember if he'd thought that of the boy in his first past. "Naruto… he deserves better," the chunin finished lamely.

There was a pause. He mustered up his courage and met the Hokage's gaze, only the find that the man was looking at him like he was a particularly interesting science project. He averted his eyes back towards the desk.

"Yes, he does," Sarutobi mused, almost under his breath. "Izumo," the man began, "I pride myself in my skills in observation, as well as the fact that I know all of the shinobi under my command quite well. It is, in my opinion, what has kept Konoha the dominant village during my tenure, if you'll excuse my lack of humility. However, I'm ashamed to admit that I made something of a mistake when it comes to you."

"A mistake?" he parroted, almost hoarse. Crap. Of course the Hokage had seen right through him.

"Yes," Sarutobi nodded, but with a smile on his face so wide it could almost be classified as a grin. "I underestimated you, you see. Almost no one in Konoha managed to put aside their prejudice towards Naruto long enough to realize the kind of man that he could be, if given the chance. Iruka did, but he spent countless hours mentoring the boy. You, however, had no such advantage. In fact, given the fact that the Nine Tails killed your parents, you'd have every reason to ignore your observations about Naruto. I cannot begin to tell you how proud I am of you right now."

Izumo ducked his head, hiding behind his fringe. It seemed like everyone wanted to congratulate him for being the first to believe in Naruto, but that wasn't true at all. He'd been content to ignore the boy or distain of him from afar, just like every other citizen of the village. Grasping for something to say, he mumbled: "Underestimated me?"

"Oh yes," the Hokage agreed. "You must understand; I've lived my entire life through one war or another. After all this time I've learned to cherish peace all the more. These last twelve years—even though there have been more than a few terrible times—have been a relief."

"I… see," Izumo said. He didn't though.

Sarutobi chuckled. "I'm sorry. You must forgive an old man for speaking indirectly. As I've grown older I've found that my answers tend to be more like stories. Hm, I suppose I'll get to the point, then. You are a good ninja, Izumo, but I've always thought that you had the potential to be a great ninja. You have a sharp mind and a love for this village that has always been apparent. However, there is no greater joy for me than to see one of my men retire voluntarily. Once upon a time, the greatest ambition of a shinobi was to die in battle, but I've begun to hope for my ninja that they would die in their beds, content and surrounded by loved ones.

"To the best of my knowledge, you have always been happy in the position you hold. You could be valuable to Konoha even off the battlefield; there are many divisions needing a man with a keen mind. I had hoped that this time of peace would persist, and that you could spend your time pursuing happiness rather than power." Sarutobi brought his pipe to his mouth and took another long draw. "At one time in my life, I would have ensured that you reach your fullest potential, regardless of what was best for you. The last few years had me hoping instead that you would _not_ do so however, that you could retire and have children and make of your life whatever you wanted.

"I underestimated you on many levels. The first, of course, was when I underestimated your perception, but perhaps the more egregious was that I underestimated your willpower." The Hokage leaned back in his seat, and stroked his beard. "You've never been very ambitious, and I took that to mean that you didn't have the drive to be strong, and I see now that I was quite mistaken. It's in your eyes- the Will of Fire. Looking at you now, I can tell that you meant it very much when you told Naruto that you'd become strong enough to protect him. I understand now that not encouraging you to the utmost of your potential was doing you a disservice, despite my positive intentions."

"Sir… you really see that potential in me?" he asked, disbelieving. Izumo understood the Hokage approving of his actions towards Naruto, but the man made it sound like he'd believed that the chunin could be something special long before he'd come back in time.

"Oh yes," Sarutobi agreed. "With the Will of Fire, you can do anything you set your mind to. The lack of it—or what I thought was the lack of it—was all that kept you back."

"Oh," Izumo responded simply. He couldn't really wrap his mind around what the man was telling him, flattered and for a moment thinking that he was still in the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Kotetsu probably wouldn't have been so terribly injured though.

"Yes, I am glad to find out that I was wrong, and just in time too," the Third mused.

"Just in time for what?"

"Well it's not often that I find a ninja with your potential whom I know that I can trust so implicitly. Especially not when I'll be losing one of my guards so soon."

"Your guards?" Izumo furrowed his brow. "You mean… Anbu?"

"Yes, one of them is retiring to teach a genin team this year."

"Oh," he responded. "Wait… are you saying you want _me_ to replace him!?"

"Was I not clear enough about that?" Sarutobi questioned, as if he hadn't just told Izumo that he expected the chunin to replace an Anbu member. "Yes, that will work perfectly… You should fit in quite nicely with Team Ro."

"Sir," Izumo blurted, interrupting the Hokage. "I'm not nearly as strong as an Anbu member!"

"Of course not," agreed Sarutobi. "But you will be eventually. Right now, what is more important to me is that I can trust you. The Anbu are more than just powerful tools at my disposal; they are my guards, my elite. They are expected to follow my orders without question. It is not enough to simply be strong. You have proven to me that I can rest easy, giving you access to the kinds of secrets to which Anbu are privy."

"But me? Anbu?"

"Izumo," the Hokage said calmly. "You told me that you wanted to become strong enough to protect the people you care about. Is that still true?"

"Of course-"

"Then you must take this opportunity," the elder said, cutting off his protests. "I cannot force you to do this. It is something that has to be on your own initiative if you are to be successful. However, if you were to dedicate yourself to Team Ro, as well as the resources that will become available to you, then I have no doubt that you can achieve your goals."

Izumo stared at the Hokage, waiting for the punch line, but none came. The man gazed back at him, calmly but seriously. It was clear that the man was waiting for his decision. Could he really be a part of Anbu? The entire situation seemed ridiculous. Nevertheless, Sarutobi was right. He couldn't afford to forgo this opportunity. He'd had vague plans of training and becoming stronger, but no real idea of how to do so. If he could pull it off, this would give him the direction that he needed.

"I… I accept your offer, Lord Hokage."

The man beamed. "Good! I'll fill out the appropriate forms, and you'll be alerted soon enough about when you need to meet with your new team! You may leave if you don't have any questions."

"But… what about my mission report?" Izumo asked.

"Iruka was kind enough to fill me in on all of the details of your confrontation last night. As he had more information than you, your testimony would be extraneous," the Hokage replied cheerfully.

"You didn't need my report…? But… was this whole thing a test?" Izumo blinked, somewhat baffled.

"Of course it was a test, my boy. I'm glad that you can see that. I've been keeping an eye out for a replacement for Dog for months now. I was very pleased to find that you might meet the criteria."

"Oh, I see," Izumo said weakly.

"Is that all then?" Sarutobi asked warmly, glancing towards the door, where, presumably the receptionist was signaling to him that his next appointment was ready.

"Ah, no, I suppose. I'll just…"

"Very good, I'll send a messenger by with your meeting time and place by tomorrow afternoon!"

"Right," Izumo agreed, still feeling like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. The Hokage hadn't even asked him to explain how he knew where Naruto was the previous night. Of all the luck. He made his way to the door, glancing back at the elder man once more. Sarutobi just nodded at him encouragingly. Shaking his head (and still completely wrong-footed) Izumo stepped through the doorway and swung it shut behind him.

Two days later, Izumo found himself approaching training ground seventeen. He was nervous, but grateful that he wasn't shaking or anything. The previous day, the chunin had been a wreck. The idea of him in Anbu was simultaneously ludicrous and exciting. It would give him a chance to make a real difference, but it also put him in a position to screw things up even more than he already had. Izumo had visited Kotetsu, but he hadn't been able to work up the nerve to tell his friend about what the Hokage had told him. Saying it out loud made it seem real, and he was still half-expecting the whole thing to be one big practical joke.

Regardless of his feelings on the matter, he arrived at the training ground at nine AM just as instructed. Izumo was half surprised to see the obvious forms of three people standing in the clearing already. Two of the figures were dressed in the standard Anbu uniform. Their pants were dark black, covering all the skin down to their sandals. Instead of the standard green flak jacket common to Konoha shinobi, they were wearing grey vests over black tank tops. Their hands and wrists were covered with black gloves and metal arm-guards that protected their forearms but left their upper arms bare. Izumo couldn't help but stare at the red tattoos on display on their shoulders.

Although the two were wearing nearly identical clothing, their demeanors couldn't have been more different. One was female with long purple hair and a cat mask with three red stripes one on each cheek and the third going down her forehead between her eyes. She was almost tense, leaning against a tree and managing to look both dismissive and aggressive (which was something of a feat by itself). Her partner was also in a mask that looked somewhat feline, its painted face forming an exaggerated frown. The eye holes were framed by dark red crescents, which were further framed by grey stripes outside the red markings. The man was more bulkily built, but was standing calmly (or at least he appeared calm) in the center of the clearing.

"Oh good, you're here!"

Izumo turned towards the third figure and jerked a bit in surprise. The man wore the traditional green flak jacket. His face was covered by a mask, and his forehead protector was tilted to cover his left eye, but did nothing to disguise his spikey white hair. He recognized the man immediately.

"Kakashi Hatake?" He furrowed his brow, before coming to a sudden realization. Sarutobi had mentioned that the Anbu member was leaving to teach a team of genin…

"Kamizuki," the jounin replied cheerfully. "When the Third told me that he wanted you to replace me on my team, I had to admit I was curious. I shouldn't—strictly speaking—be involved in the testing of new recruits, but what can I say? I'm still hesitant to let my babies go off on their own."

Of course. Of all the Anbu he'd be replacing, it would be one of the most famous and powerful men in the village. No pressure. "Ah…. I see. Um, testing?" Izumo asked weakly.

"You don't think that you just get into Anbu on a whim?" the woman snorted. "What makes you think that you're qualified?"

Before he could respond, the masked man spoke. "Actually, Cat, the Hokage's recommendation is all that's required to join the Organization." The Anbu member turned towards him, short brown hair falling over the top of his mask a bit. "Kamizuki, Cat does bring up a good point though. Given your low rank and the fact that most of your missions are not combat oriented, I asked the Third for a chance to test you ourselves. Our squad doesn't have room for someone who will hold us back."

The words weren't cruel or heated, and that almost made them worse. The clinical tone of the Anbu's voice made Izumo feel like he had been found majorly lacking. The man was so unconfident in him that he'd argued with the Hokage to prevent his immediate acceptance onto the team. Izumo couldn't really blame him though. He'd spent the last two days thinking about how he wasn't Anbu material.

"Um, alright. What exactly will my test entail?" He mentally prepared himself for a battle. Would he have to draw blood on one of them to be considered adequate? Izumo had a feeling that any sort of combat with the purple-haired woman would end up very badly for him.

"I understand that you are proficient in water techniques?" the man asked tonelessly.

"Ah, yes… do you want me to demonstrate?" he replied hesitantly. The Anbu nodded curtly. The chunin glanced at the other two ninja present, but neither one gave any indication that it was a trick. Kakashi smiled at him pleasantly from beneath his mask. Izumo formed the hand signs and spat water from his mouth. He'd used enough chakra that it should have covered a decently-sized area of about fifteen feet in diameter. Instead, the technique stretched nearly twice that distance, and the three shinobi in front of him were forced to jump into the trees lest they be covered in the Syrup. Izumo blinked at the scene before him and analyzed his chakra levels carefully. It didn't seem like he had used nearly enough to create such a large effect.

He put his thoughts on hold while the Anbu stared at the water on the ground, waiting for something that Izumo couldn't figure out. Finally, the masked man turned to him. "Is that all?"

The chunin felt himself flushing in embarrassment. For a moment, he thought they were looking at the liquid because they were impressed. They'd just been waiting to see if something else was going to happen. He rushed to defend himself.

"The Syrup Trap is designed to control the terrain of my battles. It's very adhesive, and will entangle anyone who touches it. However, I can teach my allies the counter technique so that they can move over it without any trouble. It's ideal for capture and retrieval missions," the chunin blurted desperately.

Kakashi slowly made his way down to the edge of the syrup field. The two Anbu clearly deferred to him, watching his movements wordlessly. The jounin crouched down and prodded at the water for a few moments before placing his palm against it. When he tried to remove his hand, the syrup clung to it as it was meant to and prevented him from pulling it away. Izumo felt a rush of pride in his technique before the other man formed half of a ram seal with his free hand, and the captured appendage slid away from the trap almost effortlessly. The white haired man stood up and formed a full ram seal, focusing for a moment before walking on top of the Syrup Trap just as effortlessly as Kotetsu could.

Izumo gaped at the jounin. His technique was fairly one-dimensional in that as long as the opponent saw it coming they could avoid it, but no one had ever figured out how to neutralize the adhesive, especially not as fast as Kakashi had. The chunin understood that the masked man would someday become the interim Sixth Hokage, but still, he'd made the technique look completely fangless.

"This is very interesting. It would probably keep me occupied for a few seconds in battle," the Hatake called over. Izumo assumed that it was meant to be a compliment, but it felt like anything but.

"Please dismiss your technique," the male Anbu ordered. Izumo did as told wordlessly, watching as the Syrup Trap dissipated harmlessly. They definitely weren't off to a good start. "That is the only original technique you possess, correct?"

"Yes sir," Izumo replied glumly.

The masked man nodded, not commenting on the response at all. "Very well, let's begin your testing." Izumo tensed in anticipation. "Please climb this tree using chakra," he continued, patting the trunk of a Hashirama tree next to him.

The chunin slowly relaxed his muscles. Tree climbing? Did they really think so little of him that they assumed he wouldn't be able to perform a technique common to genin? He felt a stab of irritation before he pushed it away. There was no doubt that there would be a trick of some sort to this. He approached the tree cautiously, but nothing happened, and so he began to do as ordered.

Izumo carefully placed one foot on the trunk, and then another, stepping up the tree slowly. He was prepared for projectiles or some other sort of weapon to come at him, but nothing did. Instead, when he reached the half-way point of the plant, he slipped. Something interrupted his chakra's connection to the wood, and he skidded down a few feet before slapping his palms on the trunk and stabilizing himself enough that he didn't fall off. The chunin glanced downwards and saw the masked man's hand on the plant. So it _was_ a test of his chakra control after all, only not as demeaning as he first assumed.

Izumo slowly made his way up the tree, this time out of difficultly rather than caution. The Anbu was fluctuating the chakra of the tree, causing his connection with it to break at random intervals and frequency. He had to constantly moderate his chakra to keep himself attached and fight off the random bouts of interference. It was one of the most difficult control exercises that the chunin had ever performed, but luckily chakra control was perhaps his greatest strength. Eventually Izumo reached the top of the branches.

"Very well, please come down."

The chunin jumped to the forest floor and turned towards the Anbu, but the motion was interrupted by Kakashi.

"Your chakra control is very good, better than some jounin I know," the Copy ninja commented. "I'm surprised that you were never recruited to become a medic nin."

"Oh, I tried," admitted Izumo. Med nin were always in high demand, and it was one of the careers recommended to him since the academy. "I have a bit of trouble with yang chakra though. I couldn't keep the mythical palm technique consistent enough to work on a real person. The chakra control was all there but I couldn't use yang chakra for more than a few minutes without losing control of it and ending the technique. I was always much better with yin chakra and genjutsu…"

Izumo trailed off. There was an itching feeling in his chakra, almost like-

With a twist of his chakra, the chunin dispelled the illusion that had settled over him, and then immediately jerked backwards. The female Anbu had nearly speared him on her sword. He hoped that she would've pulled her attack if he hadn't seen it coming, but he couldn't be sure. Izumo felt the adrenaline pumping through his body, and prepared himself to fight the purple haired woman, but she just sheathed her weapon.

A third masked Anbu member dropped down from the trees. It was another man, probably, wearing a monkey mask. Izumo cursed mentally. Anbu squads generally operated in teams of four. Since he was meant to replace Kakashi, he should have guessed that there'd be a fourth member.

"Kamizuki identified and dispelled a B-ranked illusion—from a ninja he hadn't been aware of—in roughly one and a half seconds," the man reported to the male cat-masked shinobi, who was presumably their leader. Kakashi whistled softly, and the woman turned to him with what Izumo imagined was an incredulous look. The captain didn't appear phased one way or another.

"Um, I did mention that I was better with genjutsu?" he said, mainly just to break the awkward silence that had developed. He'd never been _that_ good with illusions, but after the Infinite Tsukuyomi, the lesser technique felt clunky and obvious. Izumo had ripped himself from the strongest genjutsu in existence; it made sense that any other technique would be easy in comparison.

"You might not be entirely useless," the female Anbu admitted reluctantly. It sounded like the words almost pained her.

"Indeed," the captain agreed.

"Does that mean… I passed?" Izumo asked.

"Yes," the man replied simply. "We were foolish to doubt the Third's wisdom." It was spoken like a simple fact; the Anbu seemed neither impressed by Izumo nor embarrassed by his admitted mistake.

"I told you so," Kakashi chimed in a sing-song voice. The three Anbu ignored him with practiced ease.

"Don't think this means you're all the sudden one of us," the cat masked woman sniped.

"I thought that I passed your test?" Izumo said, brow furrowed.

"That was just the test of whether we would waste our time with you," she replied. "You've still got a trial period ahead."

"Thank you, Cat," the leader said drily. He turned to the chunin. "As she mentioned, you're not entirely finished yet. Today you showed us that you have a few skills, and the potential to do more, but you're not Anbu yet. According to your files, your taijutsu and martial fighting skills leave much to be desired. Such abilities are essential to our lifestyle."

"Okay," Izumo replied slowly. "So I need to become as strong as a normal Anbu member before I can join your team?"

"Not exactly," the brunet refuted. "We will spend the next week training you, trying to get you up to an acceptable level of proficiency. You aren't expected to be as capable as us; it is likely that you'll be the weakest member of our team for some time. However, if by the end of the week you are skilled enough to join us on missions, and we feel that you have the potential to become a full-fledged Anbu, then we will induct you into our ranks."

"That seems fair," the chunin said. One week wasn't enough time to get exponentially more powerful, but it didn't sound like he was expected to become a jounin in that time, just to improve _enough_.

"Good. We will retrieve you tomorrow to begin. In the meantime," the man paused and withdrew a small book from his pouch. "These are the rules and regulations of Anbu, as well as the common numerical codes for mission types and communications you'll be expected to know. Please memorize these by tomorrow."

Izumo accepted the book hesitantly, as if it were a full of exploding notes instead of secrets. The former would probably be safer actually. "Isn't this… a little insecure? What if it were lost or misplaced?"

"Then you wouldn't be fit to join us and we would find a new recruit," the Cat-masked man said simply.

Right.

"Well!" Kakashi interjected. "If that's all, then I really should be getting to the Academy. I was supposed to meet my team an hour and a half ago." With a jaunty wave, the man suddenly disappeared using the Body Flicker technique. When Izumo turned back to the other ninja, he saw that only the captain was still there.

"Uh, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then? Should I be here at the same time as today?"

"Read the handbook," the man replied simply, before he too was gone.

Izumo glanced down at the seemingly innocuous book before sighing. Nothing to do then. The chunin glanced around the training grounds carefully one last time before leaving, just in case there was another trap or test waiting for him. "Anbu," he muttered. What had he been thinking? He supposed there was nothing to do but read the manual, as he'd been instructed, and prepare his best for the trials to come.

A/N: As far as I'm aware, Kakashi actually retired from Anbu a few years before canon. This story works off the assumption that he stayed in the organization in between failing all of his genin teams. (Also, it implies my assumption that the man would not be allowed to fail Team 7, since Sarutobi gives the job to Izumo before Kakashi actually gives them the bell test.)

Notes on genjutsu: I think of identifying/breaking illusions as kind of like a pain scale. The more pain you feel, the less crippling other hurts seem. So if you amputated your arm with a rusty spoon, getting stabbed wouldn't be as bad. Similarly, since experiencing and breaking free from the Infinite Tsukuyomi, Izumo's threshold for withstanding illusions has increased a ton.

So, I had always intended for the week of training to be a part of this chapter, but it turns out that I wrote a ton on these scenes here. 6-8k is my goal for chapters, and I just hit six thousand words at the end of the scene, so I decided to stop the chapter here. The good news is that I'm very enthusiastic about the next part. I've tried to keep myself to a strict once-per-week schedule, but just this once I might end up writing the new chapter in the next couple of days. We'll see. :)

A quick note on power levels: in my opinion, the appeal to this story is that Izumo isn't a crazy strong ninja. It has always been my intention to make him more skilled in this fic than he was in canon (hence Anbu), but according to my plan he will never be a powerhouse. That's not the point of this, and he's going to have to figure out how to change the world through creativity rather than brute force.


	4. Chapter 3

A/N: So I actually almost split this chapter in two, because it was so long, but I figured what the heck. I already cut this out of the last chapter, so screw the fact that it's 150-200% of my chapter length goal. Just don't expect updates like these all the time! :)

Chapter 3:

"Wake up!"

Izumo immediately yelped and jerked out of bed. Or, he tried to jerk out of bed. Instead, he felt his body pinned down by someone above him, and stilled at the feeling of a blade against his throat. Opening his eyes, he was confronted with the terrifying sight of the Cat mask of the woman he met yesterday, inches from his face. For a moment he could barely breathe. Had he overslept? Was the woman coming to kill him so that she didn't have to deal with having him on her squad? Izumo readied his chakra, desperately trying to think of some way to get out of the hold.

Before he could do anything, she got off him with a huff. "It's five thirty AM," she informed him.

"Okay?" he replied hesitantly, feeling at his throat. There didn't seem to be any blood.

"I let myself in through your window. The bedroom door was closed, but I opened it and stood over you for five minutes. In that time I could have stabbed you at any moment. I could also have drugged you and took you off to be interrogated. I wasn't making any particularly large attempt to conceal my presence. You should have woken up the moment I opened your window. The fact that the door opening didn't rouse you is pathetic. It's a miracle you haven't been killed on the field yet."

"Oh," Izumo said lamely. There was another test failed. "I, um, I'm much more observant when I'm on missions?" he tried.

"I hope so. Follow me."

"But, I don't have my gear on yet?"

Izumo couldn't see her face, but he figured that Cat was scowling at him scornfully. "In the field, you must be prepared for any situation. If you can't protect yourself enough to buy time to get ready for training, then you'll learn your lesson the hard way. Come."

Once again thanking his past self for being so neat, the chunin quickly grabbed his weapon pouch and arm bracers and slipped his sandals on, all in the time it took for the Anbu to exit his room. He'd be hampered by his lack of proper armor but he'd hopefully be able to get through training today.

The two of them hopped across the rooftops in the darkness, and Izumo had to perform the Body Flicker desperately a few times just to keep up with her. Judging by the line of tension in her shoulders, Cat noted his difficulties disdainfully. The two of them landed in the clearing of training ground seventeen. The woman glanced at him.

"Tell me about your proficiency with bladed weapons," she ordered.

"I've got a decent amount of experience with kunai and larger, almost sword-like knives. My partner and I have a pair that we can attach with a chain and use together."

"Hm," Cat said simply. "What about wakizashi?" She tossed him one, and he fumbled to catch it, surprised. "This is the primary weapon of Anbu. Given that secrecy is so important to our organization, we encourage the use of a single weapon type so that ninja in clans or with distinctive techniques are less likely to give away their identity."

"That makes sense," Izumo answered slowly. "Are you going to teach me the forms?"

Instead of answering, she flashed forward, stabbing her blade lightly into his shoulder. Izumo stared down at it in shock. It only penetrated an inch or so, but it was clear that she could have driven it through him completely. The Anbu member withdrew her blade and he winced in pain. "I'll show you some as we go, but the rest you'll have to learn by yourself. I've found that a steel edge tends to be the best motivator."

"Shit," he swore, and drew his own blade from its scabbard quickly.

"Hold the blade tightly, with your dominant hand on top. Yes, like that, now keep it point up." She quickly demonstrated a few basic strikes and blocks. "Teaching you real blade work will take years. All we can do in the week allotted to us is to keep hitting you until you learn how to block."

With that she came after him. Cat was, surprisingly, fairly merciful. Well, relatively speaking. She consistently moved just at the peak of his own speed, and only cut him if he dropped his guard. Still, after an hour of drills he was covered in small slices all over himself. In some ways he was grateful he hadn't worn his good clothing today, as it would just have been ruined anyway.

"Come here," Cat ordered, stopping their mock fight. Warily, Izumo did as instructed, but the woman just reached out and ran her palms over his wounds, glowing green chakra seeping into him. Surprised, the chunin realized that the woman was a medic. He hadn't met very many who also participated in combat. "I can only perform basic healing techniques, but I made sure that all of your injuries are superficial so that we can continue."

"Continue?" he asked, surprised. Izumo had hoped that they were finished with their session.

"Captain didn't tell you? Martial arts are your weakest point, so you're going to be spending the bulk of your time with me. You'll be spending four hours with me, then two hours with Monkey to work on genjutsu, and finally Captain will take you for a couple of hours to help out with your water techniques. Since we started early, there will be plenty of time left in your day afterwards for you to rest or refine your work."

"I see," Izumo said softly. He hadn't thought the Anbu team would spend so much time with him. The only person who had ever really been devoted to helping him improve had been his jounin sensei, and the man had always had his attention split between Izumo and his other teammates. There had never been any point in his life where he had such skilled teachers focused fully on him. It was a bit exciting actually.

His enthusiasm didn't last very long though; Cat saw to that. "Alright, scrub. We're going to start using chakra now that you've got the basics."

"I thought that we were focusing on taijutsu?" Izumo protested weakly.

"Yeah, that's why we've got to use chakra to enhance our strength and speed. Do you think that your opponents will just wait around for you to keep up with their movements?"

With that, Cat pushed him back, and drew her sword once more. Izumo hastily followed her example. She came at him with a vicious downward strike and he raised his arms above his head, holding his wakizashi horizontally above himself. When she made contact, he tilted his blade downward, dissipating the force of her strike and causing her weapon to slide down his. The chunin then stepped forwards into her space, sweeping out with his leg to try and trip her. The Anbu responded by shoving at him with strength that exceeded his own, and Izumo stumbled backwards. Luckily he recovered in time to stop her next slice towards him.

From there on out, he desperately enhanced his limbs with chakra to keep up with her. It seemed like every time he would get an advantage, she would push back a little bit harder, move a little bit faster. It was clear that she was far, far above his level, and just increased her own combat abilities every time he got a hang of fighting her. It was probably the most high-level fight that he'd ever participated in. Their spar had lasted two hours, and he'd managed to get one lucky nick on her arm. He, on the other hand, was covered with thin cuts that stung in the open air. Finally, Cat blurred so fast that he could hardly see her, and he felt a sword at the back of his neck. It bit in just hard enough to draw blood.

"I yield," Izumo said, before dropping to his knees. He was panting roughly. His chakra levels were alright, but physically he was exhausted. It used to be the other way around. Izumo had never really had very high chakra levels, and it had taken him an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that they'd increased after his trip back in time. Likely, it was due to whatever 'transformation' he experienced in the World Tree's grasp. Chakra was, for the most part, exponential. It was kind of like physical endurance. You didn't have some sort of gauge for your strength, like you could lift a weight ten times and say 'this took up 7 arbitrary strength units'. Rather, you had a rough idea of how long you could work out before your strength failed you.

Chakra was similar. Through experimentation, he had found out how strong he could makes his techniques, and how many times he could use them. He hadn't realized that his overall amount of chakra had increased until the day before, when he used his Syrup Trap and it covered a greater amount of the forest than expected. It was likely that in the actual past, a workout like the one Cat had given him would have taken up the majority of his reserves. At least his time in the future wasn't meaningless, then.

"You're too slow," Cat commented. "We'll have to work on your base physical conditioning. I noticed that you were using standard chakra rather than yang chakra to enhance your body."

"You noticed that?" Izumo asked, confused. That wasn't the kind of thing that people could just _tell_.

"I'm a sensor," the woman clarified. Ah, that made sense then. "Are you not capable of using yang chakra efficiently?"

"I mentioned yesterday that I can't keep it consistent enough to be a medic. I've never really tried using it to enhance my body during combat. I figured that if I lost control of it unexpectedly I might create major openings."

The woman nodded. "That's going to hold you back," she said, sounding bored. Izumo kind of felt bad for her. He imagined that she was being judged based on his results as well.

Yang chakra could be used to enhance one's physical attributes more potently than normal chakra. Because it was the half associated with the 'body', it was useful for things like taijutsu and medical techniques. The best martial artists were all masters of yang chakra manipulation. It was very similar to elemental ninjutsu. Someone who didn't have an affinity for lightning manipulation could still use lightning techniques, but the attacks would be weaker and take more chakra than a master's.

"You're not going to be able to participate in high-level combat without using yang chakra, unless you can seriously overcompensate with normal chakra. That will limit your effectiveness," she hummed. "Whatever, yin-yang isn't what I'm here to teach you."

"It's not?" he asked.

"No. I need to get you up to task with your martial prowess—a not insubstantial task, mind you. If you end up more of a ninjutsu type, that's fine as long as your fighting abilities are sufficient."

"Right," Izumo agreed. After that, Cat spent her last hour working him on strength and agility drills, after being kind enough to heal him (of the wounds _she_ inflicted in the first place). While he cooled down and stretched, she loomed over him.

"Alright, you have a half-hour break before Monkey comes and works with you. I'm going to collect you again tomorrow. I suggest you be better prepared this time." With that, she disappeared in a blur and Izumo was left panting on the ground.

Soon after she exited the training grounds, Monkey strolled into the field. He was carrying to-go boxes that smelled delicious, and the chunin hoped desperately that the man would be willing to share. 

"Hey," the Anbu called over, friendly. "I thought you'd be hungry after the wringer that Cat put you through."

"You're my favorite person in the whole world," Izumo blurted. Monkey laughed.

"Yeah, I figured," he said before handing over a box. It was full of breakfast food, which was understandable given that it was currently late-morning. "Go ahead and eat up! We're going to be working on genjutsu so you'll have time to digest."

At the reminder, Izumo lazily brought his hands together. "Release," he said softly, and the Monkey in front of him disappeared. The food (thank Gods) was still there. The Anbu member stepped out of the trees to his left and cocked his head at the chunin.

"How long did you know that you were in an illusion?"

"Since you walked into the clearing," Izumo said. "Really, I was just afraid that breakfast was a genjutsu and I didn't want to break it," he admitted.

The Anbu member laughed, sounding surprised. "I thought that your exhaustion and the distraction of the food would keep you from noticing."

"Nope. Speaking of which, you can release the other one, too," Izumo replied, waving lazily towards his left, where he sensed the buzz of a genjutsu, irritating in the back of his mind, like a mosquito hovering behind his ear. There was a pause before the surroundings in the direction he'd indicated wavered and then subtly shifted to the side.

"That was a double-layered illusion," Monkey mused. "It's pretty impressive that you noticed it so quickly, especially since it was so subtle. Why didn't you release it yourself?"

"I didn't want to waste the chakra," he admitted. "Cat already wore me out pretty decently. I figured I should pace myself."

"Hm," Monkey hummed. "Not a bad idea, actually."

"So you're going to work on genjutsu with me?" Izumo prompted, setting his empty Styrofoam box to the side.

"Yeah," the Anbu agreed. "Go ahead and cast one on me."

Izumo nodded and made a few hand signs, being careful to keep Monkey from seeing them. Silently, he cast the False Surroundings technique on the other man. The Anbu glanced around himself curiously, before pointing out the flowers to their right. "Those were purple before, right?"

"Yes," Izumo confirmed. They should look blue to the man now.

"And… I think those bees are an illusion. Wait, I know it." Monkey turned to glance at him. "You've got sound to it too? That's good. I'll leave it active for a bit. I have to see if the illusions lose consistency or fade over time. In the meantime, how are you doing? I heard that your friend was injured."

The chunin frowned a bit at the small talk. It was probably another test. Genjutsu didn't take very much chakra to maintain; rather, they depended on mental acuity. If Izumo let himself get too distracted, then the illusion would start to fail. "Kotetsu is alright," he said carefully. "He's going to be in rehab for a while but there's no reason that he shouldn't be able to get back to active duty eventually."

"That's good to hear. Does he know about all this?" Monkey asked, gesturing around them. Izumo presumed that he was referring to the whole Anbu-candidacy thing.

"Ah, no," the unmasked man admitted sheepishly. "It all seemed so incredible, and I wasn't sure that it wouldn't be distressing to him."

"I would think that something this big wouldn't be the kind of thing that you should hide from your boyfriend," Monkey probed.

Izumo choked a bit, swallowing the wrong way. "What! No, things aren't like that with me and Kotetsu."

"Really? I apologize. It's just that you're both each other's emergency contacts…"

The chunin opened his mouth to defend himself further, before realizing that his hold on the illusion had slipped. The flowers were still blue, but the bee was floating in the air, static and no longer buzzing. He frowned. "That was a dirty trick," Izumo accused.

Monkey chuckled. "Forgive me. I needed to see how well you could hold up under distraction. This was very informative."

"I thought you were the nice one," the chunin grumbled.

"Don't believe people based on your first impressions, then," Monkey suggested wryly. "Or as the captain—excuse me, the former captain—would say: look underneath the underneath. Release," he said lightly, and Izumo's illusion shattered.

After that, the two of them spent about half an hour going back and forth, trading off at putting each other under genjutsu and then releasing it. "Hm, there's something a little off about your techniques. They slowly lose vibrancy and consistency over time, almost like you're losing your grasp on the yin chakra."

"Yeah, I've noticed that myself. It's one of the reasons I don't generally rely on illusions except for temporary stopgaps. It's not nearly as bad as with yang chakra, but-"

"Wait, what was that?"

"Um," Izumo replied. "It's not as bad as with yang chakra?"

Monkey tilted his head to the side in contemplation, before snapping his fingers like he had a sudden realization. "Tell me what you know about the yin-yang."

Izumo furrowed his brow, a bit surprised by the sudden quiz. "Yang chakra is associated with the body. It's useful for things like medical techniques and fighting, while yin chakra is associated with the mind, and is primarily used in genjutsu," he started. Monkey waved at him to continue. "Um, while pure yang and yin chakra are rarely used in ninjutsu, there's a whole branch of techniques that utilize them, and yin-yang release is considered something like a sixth chakra nature."

"Go on," Monkey prompted.

"Yin-yang release, unlike yin release or yang release, uses a mixture of the two chakra types. Yin-yang ninjutsu combine chakra shape manipulation with yin-yang manipulation. We're actually introduced to these techniques in the Academy, though most genin wouldn't realize it," Izumo took a deep breath. He was clearly in 'lecture mode' as Kotetsu called it. "The three basic techniques taught in the Academy are representative of all yin-yang ninjutsu. The substitution technique is mainly oriented with the body, and so uses yang chakra primarily. The transformation ninjutsu uses a balanced amount of yin and yang chakra, being both a physical change and illusory. The clone technique is primarily yin chakra, almost to the point of being a genjutsu. The three are supposed to give students an introduction to yin-yang ninjutsu, which make up the bulk of most ninja's techniques."

"Very comprehensive," Monkey praised. "But it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Do you know about the yin-yang itself?"

" _The_ yin-yang?" Izumo questioned, confused.

"I didn't think so. It's not exactly common knowledge anymore, which is a shame. Some believe that it originated from Eastern philosophies, from the continent across the Great Ocean. Others think that knowledge of it was spread by the Sage of Six Paths himself." Monkey reached down and drew a circle in the dirt with his finger, and separated the two halves of it with a sinuous line. "One half is yin, and the other yang. They are two halves of the same whole, separate and opposing, yet they complete each other. Body and mind, male and female, light and dark, expanding and contracting… the list goes on and on. Essentially, the concept is that there are certain things that cannot exist without the other. We use the philosophy to describe chakra."

"I suppose that I understand," the chunin said pensively. "Chakra is often stylized as a combination of physical and spiritual energies. It makes sense that yin chakra and yang chakra are like two parts of a whole."

"Good!" Monkey said brightly. "But that's not all of the philosophy." He reached down and drew two small dots in the large part of the two commas. "Scholars say that in every yin there is yang, and vice versa. No good can exist without a little evil; darkness cannot exist without the light, etcetera."

"Okay," Izumo agreed, following the logic so far.

"Yin and yang chakra are similar. Pure yin chakra will eventually destabilize itself without the presence of yang. Even though we teach that genjutsu, for example, is a pure application of yin chakra, every illusion must have tiny traces of yang to be truly effective. The dot in the symbol, so to speak.

"It seemed strange to me—when you spoke about it yesterday—that someone with chakra control as good as yours wouldn't be able to keep the mythical palm technique going for long periods of time. It's essentially just a pure expression of chakra control. People either are skillful enough with yang chakra to use it or they aren't. I haven't heard of someone being able to do it half-way like you. The fact that you're doing something similar with genjutsu, even to a lesser extent is telling to me. I think that your control is actually so good that you separate the two chakras _completely_. If you can manage to mix them correctly, your illusions will be much more potent."

"Really!" Izumo cried, excited. "What about yang chakra? Do you think I could use it to enhance my taijutsu?"

Monkey shrugged. "Only time can tell, really. It's very possible though. Do you want to get started on it?"

The chunin nodded enthusiastically. Changing the way he used chakra was difficult, kind of like finding out that you'd been using a pencil the wrong way for years. Instinct and muscle memory kept trying to get him to go back to the way he'd used techniques before, and he'd lose control over his illusions by forgetting to include yang chakra. Still, he could tell that his genjutsu were much more convincing and harder to break out of.

By the end of the two hours, Izumo was beaming. Monkey had been a very skilled mentor. It wasn't easy to spot a subtle mistake like the one that the chunin had been making, especially without advanced sensory abilities like Cat possessed. He might have gone his entire life without correcting that mistake, assuming it was just a natural lack of talent on his part (and in fact, he _had_ spent the entirety of one lifetime thinking just that). At twenty-eight, Izumo had basically hit the ceiling of his ability to grow as a ninja, and had long since come to terms with it. He hadn't improved so much from one training session since before he was even a teenager. The chunin was a bit high with the glee of finding out that he wasn't entirely hopeless.

Monkey chuckled good-naturedly. Apparently his good mood was contagious. "Keep up the good work, buddy, and you'll be getting full marks from me at least. If I'm not careful, you'll be taking my spot on the team!" the man joked lightly. "Our time's up for today though. Follow me. The captain wanted me to take you to a new training ground for his part."

That made sense to Izumo. The captain was supposed to be helping him with his water techniques. There wasn't exactly any water in training ground seventeen. The two of them made their way through the forest, to what the chunin recognized as training ground twenty-four. This one normally contained a fast-running river that was useful for practicing water walking. The chunin gaped a bit when he entered it. In place of the flat ground, the earth was plateaued fifty feet in the air, creating a roaring waterfall where the river travelled perpendicularly across the raised earth.

"Captain's waiting for you up top!" Monkey said cheerfully, before giving him a friendly slap on the back. Izumo staggered a bit, but the Anbu was gone by the time he turned back to him. Alright then, nowhere to go but up. The chunin hopped up the edifice, using chakra to stick to the sides. When he got up to the top, he saw that the feline-masked man was indeed waiting for him. The man stood silent, only acknowledging Izumo with a slight nod. After a moment, the chunin felt awkward in the silence.

"Uh, I'm here, sir," he said, trying to start a conversation.

"Yes," the captain agreed. "How are your chakra levels?"

The brunet took a moment for self-evaluation. He'd done his best to pace himself throughout the day, and it seemed like it had paid off. "I'm probably about halfway through my reserves right now. I used a lot of chakra with Cat," Izumo explained.

"That's sufficient," answered the Anbu. "Don't forget that you have to last through the week as well. I needed to make sure that I wasn't going to push you too far."

That was logical. Chakra levels actually recovered fairly quickly with a good night's rest. Fortunately, it wasn't like physical workouts, where you would build up lactate in your muscles and get sore for days. The main exception, however, was if a ninja went too far and got into chakra exhaustion. Exhaustion drained the body so much that vital organs began to lack the chakra they needed to function. The body then went into emergency mode, essentially, and all chakra available (even days after the event) would be sequestered for vital processes. It could take up to a week to recover from.

"You are able to continue training?" Captain asked.

"Yes, sir. I'll be fine."

"Good," nodded the Anbu. "Step out onto the river then."

Izumo did as directed, and ended up downstream from the other man. He was probably about ten feet from the edge of the waterfall, with the masked man a further twenty feet from him. "Are you ready?" the man called out.

The chunin tensed. He'd hoped he would get some instruction in what they were doing other than knowing that it was related to water techniques. Even Cat had shown him a few of the basics before attacking him. Nevertheless, he nodded. The captain made a hand sign, and immediately Izumo felt himself sink into the water. Surprised, he didn't manage to right himself in time before he was swept over the edge of the waterfall.

"Ah!" he yelped, but was luckily able to twist around in time to land on the water's surface lightly.

"Come back up, please," Captain ordered.

Grumbling a bit, the chunin slowly climbed up the cliff face. "Do you know what just happened?" the man asked.

Izumo might not have known, except for the fact that he was aware that they were meant to be working on water ninjutsu. "You saturated the river with water chakra? Since the water was under your control, it interfered with my chakra keeping me buoyant."

"Indeed," the other man confirmed. "Good analysis. What do you need to do to counter the effect?"

"Probably use water nature transformation myself to stabilize the river around me."

"Right again. Are you ready for round two?"

"Yeah," Izumo said, and steadied himself on top of the water. This time, when he felt the captain's chakra come in contact with his own, he transformed his chakra into water nature and mixed it in with the chakra below his feet, almost like he was preparing to use it for a ninjutsu. Unfortunately, he forgot to account for the fact that the water itself was moving, and so the liquid he controlled soon went over the edge, him along with it.

It wasn't enough to just take control of a small portion of the river, since the water was flowing. If they'd been on a lake, having power over a column of water would be sufficient to keep the other man's chakra away from him. Because the liquid in the river was continually moving, he couldn't keep his chakra static. The fluid saturated with his chakra would naturally move over the edge of the cliff, and be replaced with water under the captain's control, which would then push him to the waterfall. Izumo frowned. He'd either have to continually emit water natured energy or wrestle control from the Anbu.

The former was likely far too wasteful to be the intent of the exercise. In order to use water chakra to keep his area steady, however, Izumo would have to release the water from his control behind him and then gain dominance over the liquid in front of him, with the captain's chakra lightly fighting him the whole way. Overall, the exercise was much, much more difficult than he'd anticipated, and required a far higher level of control over water nature transformation than he'd had to exert before.

"This is a very clever drill," Izumo complimented the captain, once he reached the top of the plateau.

"Thank you. The former Captain taught it to me."

"I thought that Kakashi's affinity was for lightning?" Izumo asked, confused.

"Kakashi is at least minimally proficient in all chakra transformations. It's how he can maintain his reputation as the man who knows a thousand techniques."

"Right," Izumo mumbled. The man was younger currently than the chunin had been in the future, and yet he was more skilled than Izumo could even imagine being. It was pretty humbling.

The two ninja spent the remainder of their time similarly. Needless to say, by the end Izumo ended up soaked from head to toe. Every time he would get the hang out the technique, the Anbu would increase the pressure of his chakra, sending him sprawling. Izumo had at least learned to jump off the side of the river when he lost control, rather than go tumbling down the waterfall. The captain's training style was very similar to Cat's, in that as soon as he started becoming acclimated to the difficulty level, it would get ramped up just beyond his grasp.

Currently, Izumo was lying flat on his back on the ground, trying to catch his breath. The other man loomed over him casually. "That's all for today, I think. You can have the rest of the day to yourself. I would suggest that you don't train too much by yourself, since you'll need to be at your best tomorrow. Have a good day."

The Anbu disappeared before he could respond. Izumo dropped his head back on the ground with a thunk. Could the masked ninja try walking away like normal people for once?

It was only mid-afternoon, and the chunin didn't want to waste the whole day away resting. The first and last parts of his training had been painful, both physically and mentally. He didn't feel like he had improved much in either his taijutsu or ninjutsu. With Monkey, however, it seemed like he'd been growing in leaps and bounds. Izumo allowed himself a break to rest, before pulling himself up and sitting cross legged.

Monkey had given him quite a bit of praise for his illusions, once he'd started mixing his yin chakra correctly. Izumo remembered what Cat had told him in the morning, about how his inability to use yang chakra in combat would hold him back. Since he had improved so much with the use of yin chakra, the chunin thought he might be able to get its counterpart down as well.

Izumo closed his eyes and meditated, feeling the chakra at his core. Splitting the yin chakra from yang was fairly simple; he'd been doing it for years and had practiced quite a bit with Monkey. The tricky part was combining the right proportion of yin and yang together. If he used too much yin chakra it was wasteful and acted more like normal chakra, too little yin and the yang chakra eventually destabilized. It was slightly different than what he'd done earlier. For genjutsu the bulk of the chakra was yin, with which he was more skilled.

When he was just splitting the energies and recombining them, he was hardly losing any chakra. As long as he didn't _use_ it for anything, Izumo would be able to continue essentially all night long. The chunin wanted to practice the correct combination of yin with yang until it was second nature though; he had to be able to do it in an instant in order to strengthen his limbs in combat. He had the petty urge to surprise Cat in the morning with his new skill. Overall it was a very tedious process, but one with which he was well suited, given his meticulous nature. Split the chakra, recombine it, and see how long he could hold it. Then, he would try a slightly different mixture, and repeat the process, over and over until it finally clicked.

Unable to resist, despite knowing it would use up his reserves unnecessarily, Izumo spread the yang chakra throughout his body and _moved_. The ground blurred past him, and he flew forward. Feeling cocky, he thrust his fist forward, and gaped as he punched through a tree all the way to its heartwood. Izumo let out a loud whoop of happiness, and flitted around the training ground a few more times.

Eventually, the chunin remembered something that Kotetsu could always do that had made him green with envy. His partner had always been very good at using yang chakra, and so was much better with the Replacement and Body Flicker techniques. The two ninjutsu used yang chakra almost exclusively, after all. Izumo had never tried this before, but… keeping his hands carefully at his sides, the man _twisted_ his chakra and felt himself fly forwards at speeds he'd only imaged before.

"I did it!" the man called gleefully. Performing techniques, even basic ones like the Body Flicker, without hand seals required a mastery of the fundamentals behind it. For an elemental ninjutsu, that would mean mastery of both shape and nature manipulation to the point where the hand signs weren't needed to concentrate one's chakra. Yin-yang jutsu were the same in concept. Izumo had been using the Body Flicker for over a decade, and was intimately familiar with the feel of the technique, but had always required at least the ram seal to focus enough to perform the yin-yang manipulation necessary.

The brunet released the hold on his chakra, allowing it to dissipate. He couldn't afford to waste too much. The chunin flopped backwards on the ground, this time laughing instead of tired. Intellectually, he'd understood that yang chakra was much more effective for combat than normal chakra, but it was one thing to know it in theory and another to find out in practice. Izumo had moved faster and hit harder than he ever had in his entire life, and used only a fraction of the total chakra he would have needed to do something similar without yang manipulation.

He understood that he was still a long ways away from even being a proper Anbu member, let alone from being strong enough to handle the insanely powerful enemies he'd have to deal with eventually. Still, for the first time since coming back in time, Izumo felt like he had a _chance_. The feeling of dread that had been haunting him for the last few days lifted, just a little, and all of the sudden the world didn't seem so doomed anymore.

The chunin was distracted from his thoughts by the growling of his stomach. Glancing at the position of the sun, he realized that a couple of hours had passed while he wasn't paying attention, and it was almost past time for dinner. Plus, he'd only been able to eat the one meal that day. Izumo slowly stood up and made his way over towards the village proper. Before he could make it though, he was accosted by a cry of:

"Hey! Izumo! Over here!"

Running towards him was an orange-clad, enthusiastic genin.

"Naruto? What are you doing out here?"

"I've been training," the boy responded brightly. "It took me _forever_ to get untied from the log and then I just figured that I'd get some practice in!"

"Tied to a log?" Izumo asked, confused.

"Yeah! Kakashi-sensei is a total jerk! He tied me up and then left me-"

Suddenly, another voice cut the boy off. "Hm? Were you talking about me, Naruto?" Both the chunin and the genin gaped over towards the tree line, where the aforementioned jounin was slumped casually against a tree, reading a small orange book. Izumo's eye twitched a bit at the sight of it. Was the man reading _porn_ in front of children?

"Sensei! Have you been there the whole time!?" Naruto shouted.

"Maaah, there's no need to be so loud. Of course I've been here the whole time."

Izumo wasn't entirely sure why the man had apparently tied the blonde to a stump, but it didn't surprise him that Kakashi hadn't actually left. The former-Anbu was so concerned about his squad mates that he wouldn't let them test a new recruit by themselves. The chunin doubted that the man would leave a small child unattended, especially one that he was responsible for.

"Why didn't you untie me?" cried the genin.

"I believe firmly in the teaching philosophies of self-sufficiency," the lazy man drawled.

"Teaching what nows? Why don't you just say what you mean," growled Naruto.

"He means that you learn things better when you do them yourself," Izumo interjected quickly.

"Oh, well then why didn't he just say so?"

Seeing that this conversation was going nowhere fast, the chunin decided to change the subject. "I was just going to get dinner, Naruto. Do you want to join me?"

"Ramen!" the boy shouted enthusiastically, grabbing his hand and dragging him towards the stand.

As he was being pulled away, Izumo turned towards the figure at the tree line. "You're welcome to join us, as well." The other man just hummed and didn't move, so the chunin assumed that he wasn't coming. He was quickly proven incorrect though, because when he and Naruto reached Ichiraku's, the jounin was already seated, waiting for them.

"Oh, were you two going to come here as well?" the man drawled as if they hadn't invited him earlier.

"Sensei! You _know_ that we were," accused Naruto. When the boy wasn't looking, the jounin winked at him with his visible eye. Izumo hid a smile behind his hand. He couldn't really blame Kakashi for winding up the genin; the blonde was adorable when he was flustered.

As they ordered, Izumo dug in with delight. Ramen was salty and unhealthy, but it was also packed full of carbs and protein (if you ordered it with meat) that were necessary to regain chakra and stamina. He'd probably eat it more than he should if he kept hanging around Naruto, but for now it was beneficial. The chunin was listening with one ear as the genin prattled on about how he and his team overcame Kakashi's test.

"And then sensei poked me in the butt!" he cried, indignant.

"What?" Izumo said dumbfounded, snapping his head towards the jounin. Suddenly the conversation had his full attention. The man looked visibly embarrassed, even with barely a sliver of his face showing.

"You make it sound so dirty, Naruto," the man mumbled. "It was the Thousand Years of Pain," he said to Izumo. Ah. The 'technique' was a bit of a practical joke amongst Konoha ninja, albeit an inappropriate one. There were wild rumors about how it started (the most popular being that the First Hokage defeated Madara Uchiha using a super powered butt poke).

"Whatever," the boy said dismissively. "We all know you're a total pervert anyway Kakashi-sensei."

The man chuckled a bit nervously, scratching the back of his head. Feeling bad for the guy, Izumo distracted the blonde. "Hey Naruto, do Teuchi and Ayame know about how you passed your exam?"

"Oh! Good point! Thanks for reminding me, Izumo," Naruto beamed.

While the kid was distracted, Kakashi turned to him. "You're very good with children, you know. Have you ever thought of becoming a sensei?"

"Don't try to pawn your genin off on me," Izumo replied drily. The jounin raised his hands in the air defensively.

"Heh, you caught me," Kakashi smiled. "How did your training go today?"

"It went pretty well," the chunin said. "I have a few tricks up my sleeves now for C- um, our female friend." He wasn't sure that he should be using Anbu call signs out in public. The former captain just nodded approvingly. "My water transformation training is going a little slow though," Izumo admitted.

"You'll get it eventually," Kakashi encouraged.

"It's just a question of if I get it in the next week," countered the chunin.

"I have faith in you," the man said, simply. It warmed him more than any glowing comment could have, surprisingly. "But I really ought to go while Naruto is still distracted." With that, the man wiggled his fingers at him before disappearing with a small poof of smoke. Izumo realized that he hadn't even seen Kakashi remove his mask to eat.

"Woah, where did sensei go?"

"He went home, Naruto. And actually, I should be doing the same. I need to get some rest."

"Oh, okay Izumo! See you later!"

Shaking his head in amusement, the chunin exited the ramen stand. Slowly, a smirk made its way over his face. Cat said that she was going to get him up again tomorrow. He needed to prepare a few surprises for her then.

"Wake up!"

Izumo flailed, rolling over quickly and grabbing at the kunai he'd placed under his pillow. By the time he'd gotten to his feet and ready to defend himself, Cat's wakizashi was pointed at his face. He slumped, disappointed. "You disarmed all my traps."

"Yeah," she confirmed. "It was a lot better job than yesterday. You _might_ not have gotten killed. You've got a good series of alarm traps around your bed this time so I couldn't wake you up with a kunai to the throat again. Still, you forgot to account for the fact that I could just ignore the alarms and get to you while you were still rousing yourself."

Sighing, the chunin nodded, accepting the criticism. It was constructive at least, so he knew what to improve upon for the next day. "Back to the training ground, then?"

"Indeed," agreed Cat.

This time, Izumo was fully dressed in combat gear, so getting to the clearing was much more pleasant. The two of them drew their swords and started their match. Cat started out slow, to get him warmed up, and when he wasn't desperately trying to keep himself from getting hurt, the back and forth motion of the spar was exhilarating. Gradually, the Anbu member sped up, until they were going as fast as they were at the end of their session yesterday.

When he felt confident that he was ready, Izumo carefully formed the correct ratio of yang chakra and blurred towards Cat far faster than she could have any reason to expect. The woman was clearly surprised, but rather than get the upper hand, Izumo found himself speared on her sword, or at least he would have if he hadn't used the Replacement Technique instinctively. Thank Gods he figured out how to perform it without hand signs the day prior.

Both the chunin and Cat gaped for a moment at the log impaled on her wakizashi, before she shook her head, snapping herself from her stupor. "You idiot! Don't do that!" Cat sounded like she was scowling. "Did you intentionally lie to me about not being able to use Yang chakra just to get the upper hand?"

"No!" Izumo protested. "Monkey helped me with my yin chakra and I realized that I'd been doing yin-yang transformation the wrong way for years. After that I practiced to get yang down. I'm still not great with it, but it's good enough for sparring."

"Monkey got you to a level where you could perform techniques like that in one day?" she mused. "Maybe I don't give him enough credit as a sensei."

Izumo deadpanned. Maybe she could give _him_ a little more credit as a student?

"Still," she continued. "This isn't a real battle. You shouldn't pull out new techniques without warning me. It's hard for me to keep my lethal instincts in check and if you'd been a hair slower you might be dead right now," scolded Cat.

The chunin flushed in embarrassment. He knew that. The concept wasn't specific to Anbu training; all ninja techniques were dangerous and friendly sparring matches weren't places to fool around. He'd just been so determined to get the upper hand for once after she carved him up so much the day before that he'd let his ego get in the way of his better judgment.

"I apologize," he said seriously, bowing at the waist. "It wasn't right for me to do that."

"Hm, whatever. Just don't do it again. I'm more excited at the fact that you're not completely hopeless."

The corners of Izumo's mouth twitched. "To be honest, ma'am, so am I."

He must have surprised the woman, because she laughed and then slapped a hand to her mask. After that, Cat seemed a bit warmer towards him, although that didn't make her at all more merciful in combat. She was something of an expert at using yang chakra to enhance her body, and she had a lot of tips for him about how to maximize its effect with minimal drain on his reserves.

By the end of their session, the two of them were flying through combat at a level that Izumo had never been able to sustain- had never even dreamed of being able to sustain. By the time Cat called a stop, the chunin was definitely banged up (it felt like his bruises had bruises) but he was grinning from ear to ear.

"I never thought I'd say it," Cat began, "but you might just be able to pull this off. _Don't_ let that go to your head, though."

"No ma'am," he confirmed.

"Alright, alright. I've got stuff to do. Be good for Monkey. The man's apparently a miracle-worker." The last part was muttered under her breath, but Izumo felt that he was still meant to hear it. The chunin sat back against a tree, breathing deeply and smiling. Maybe he could actually do this.

He couldn't do this. Izumo was floating on his back at the bottom of the waterfall. He briefly considered just sinking to the bottom and letting himself drown. It might be more merciful than allowing himself to stupidly think that he had the potential to actually succeed in Anbu. It was day six of his weeklong training and he wasn't any closer to besting the Captain than he'd been when he'd started.

The session with the other two Anbu members were going swimmingly (no pun intended). Cat had gotten him to a point where using yang chakra was as instinctive as breathing. Obviously, she was still far more skilled than him with a blade. For her, swordplay was an art, while Izumo just swung steel to protect himself. Still, she'd grudgingly proclaimed him proficient earlier today, warning him that he still had a long way to go as far as his physical conditioning was concerned.

His time with Monkey was practically like playing. The two of them would joke around and work on genjutsu with each other. They often had challenges like who could have the most complex illusion, or make the most vibrant colors, or the most unique sounds. The Anbu member had always been friendly towards him. On top of that not many people specialized in genjutsu and Monkey was enthusiastic to have someone to experiment with.

His successes with the other two ninja arts were only further punctuated by his utter failure to make significant progress with his water ninjutsu. At first, the captain and Izumo had thought that he was improving. Unfortunately, they'd quickly realized that he was just getting so much better in the other areas that he wasn't wasting chakra anymore and had a lot more to spare on his practice sessions with the feline-masked man. Izumo hadn't actually been progressing, but instead was overcompensating by using too much chakra rather than increasing his mastery of water nature transformation.

Well, that wasn't exactly true. Izumo was certainly getting better, it was just very slow. It felt like he'd hit a wall, or more literally, a waterfall. Even the captain was beginning to show signs of being affected by it. When the chunin made his way up to the top of the cliff, the other man looked tense.

"Let's try again," the Captain said stiffly. Both of them were feeling the press of time against them. Technically, Izumo assumed that the man could accept him onto his squad or give him more time even if he didn't pass the test, but the chunin was sure that benching an entire team of Anbu while one member trained was both inefficient and expensive for the village.

"Mah, now let's not be too hasty," a voice said. Izumo turned, already recognizing Kakashi's distinct tone. As expected the man was lounging comfortably against a tree, but at least his distinctive orange book was missing from the guy's hand.

"Kakashi," the Anbu said pointedly, as if stressing the fact that he hadn't said 'captain'. "The recruit and I are on a limited schedule. We can't afford to take breaks."

The jounin scratched as his chin. "Aw, my cute little apprentice. I thought that you respected my opinions," the man mused, sounding like he didn't care either way.

The Anbu captain slumped a bit. It was the purest expression of emotion that Izumo had seen on the man to that point. "Alright. What do you suggest?"

"Well, has your approached worked thus far?" Kakashi asked lightly.

"No, you know it hasn't," the Anbu grumped.

"Then why are you trying to keep repeating the same failed exercise over and over?"

Izumo could hear the captain sigh loudly. He didn't blame the man. There wasn't anything wrong with Kakashi's teaching style, but the chunin could see where it would get vexing very quickly.

"I suppose we could take a different approach," the man murmured. "Kamizuki, I'm going to take a small amount of water and pass it towards you, and you'll have to take control of it with your own chakra and pass it back to me."

At Izumo's nod, they started the new exercise. In the beginning, it seemed easier, but Izumo soon found out that the scale was just different. It was the same general idea as the practice that they'd been doing for the past six days, although a bit more cooperative and less likely to end up with him soaked at the bottom of a waterfall. The chunin could see his mentor getting stiffer and stiffer as he began repeating the same mistakes that had plagued him in the first drill. Out of the corner of his eye, Izumo saw the jounin flip his forehead protector up for an instant and examine him with his sharingan.

"Kakashi," the captain said finally, sounding exasperated. "Do you have any advice?"

"Hm?" the man replied. "Oh I'm just a bystander. How will you ever learn to be a good teacher and mentor if I always give you all of the answers?"

That seemed to finally break the normally unflappable man's resolve. He threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. "Alright, Kamizuki. Our time is up. Keep practicing. Maybe you'll get a breakthrough."

Izumo thought that he would have better luck if he could convince the eccentric jounin to help him instead, but when he glanced over at the tree line, the man was already gone. The chunin sighed. He couldn't really do much by himself because at their core, the techniques he'd been practicing required two people. He still half-heartedly went over a couple of water ninjutsu that he could perform, hoping for a miracle.

It wasn't long before he headed home. Izumo was glad that he didn't end up running into Naruto on the way to his apartment, because he wasn't sure that he could handle all the boy's cheer at the moment. The man trudged upstairs and opened his door, closing it behind him before tensing. Something was wrong. He grabbed a kunai and gripped it tightly in his hand before heading into his living room. Was this another test from Cat? Upon entering the room, however, Izumo saw Kakashi standing and examining the paintings on his walls, looking like he owned the place.

Suffering a strange sense of situational-vertigo, the chunin glanced around, checking that it actually _was_ his apartment and that he didn't somehow wander into the jounin's. After confirming that it was in fact the right room, Izumo relaxed a bit and called over curiously.

"Um, can I help you?"

The other man turned around to face him and smiled brightly, or at least appeared to behind his mask. "Yes! I was hoping that you could make me some tea."

"Tea?" Izumo repeated dumbly.

"Tea!" the man agreed.

"Well… yes, I suppose I could," the chunin said slowly, brow furrowed. Naruto complained about his sensei being strange, but Izumo had always just assumed that those were the complaints of a child about his teacher. Maybe the boy had the right idea of it. "Do you have any preferences?"

"Oh no, just make whatever you like best," Kakashi said distractedly, tracing his fingers along his cabinets. Izumo suppressed the urge to break out the cleaning supplies and sanitize his apartment under the scrutiny.

The chunin made his way into the kitchen and stared blankly at the pot as the water heated. He thought that after everything that had happened to him, there wouldn't be anything that could surprise him anymore, but the future sixth-Hokage showing up in his apartment and asking for tea had him completely wrong footed. When the water boiled, the brunet quickly poured it into mugs and added the tea bags. As a career chunin he wasn't making enough money to get the really good teas, and he only drank it for the caffeine anyway.

"Do you want any sugar or milk," Izumo asked as he reentered the living room.

"No, this is fine," smiled Kakashi. Everything about the man seemed catered to be as pleasant and inoffensive as possible. Izumo admired him for a moment. He couldn't invite himself into another man's apartment for tea and look so at ease. The man sipped the liquid through his mask (to Izumo's bemusement) and sighed. "Ah, this is excellent," he complimented.

"Um, thank you." His response almost sounded like a question to his ears.

Kakashi moved his cup in a circular motion, watching the tea as it spiraled in the glass. "Isn't liquid so interesting? Unlike earth, it's constantly in motion, but unlike air it will sit contently until something else acts on it." At the end of his statement, the man tipped his cup over, the tea pouring out. Izumo jerked and stood up, but the jounin had placed his other hand under the stream and the liquid collected above his palm in a globe.

Suddenly, the chunin realized that this was no social call. The white-haired man was giving him a lesson of sorts. He struggled to remember what the masked man had been saying. "I suppose I've never thought much about it," Izumo admitted.

"Hm, look again," the man urged, replacing the tea in his cup and tilting the glass to the point where the water was at the edge of falling out of it. "What do you see?"

Izumo stared intently at the drink. "It's hot, steaming even. The water quivers in time with your breathing, but doesn't fall over… In fact, at points the liquid even moves _above_ the cup a tiny bit, but doesn't fall over."

Kakashi nodded. "Indeed. Why is that?"

"Well," the chunin mused. "Water is naturally cohesive. It sticks to itself because it's a polar molecule. It has positive and negative partial charges that are attractive to each other."

"Right," Kakashi agreed. "Now why does it do this," the man tipped the cup over a little more, and the tea once more fell into his hand, "if it wants to stay together?"

"The force of attraction between the water molecules isn't unbreakable. If another force—in this case gravity—is stronger, then it will move. In fact, in this case it's so small that you can hardly see it, but the falling water actually sticks to itself so well that it will pull out a little bit of tea that wouldn't escape the cup just due to gravity itself."

"So what you're saying is that water follows the path of least resistance?"

"I suppose so," Izumo confirmed. "That's what makes it so difficult to use water ninjutsu. You have to convince it to go in a direction that it doesn't want to."

The jounin just hummed and sipped at his glass. "You do make fantastic tea," Kakashi beamed.

Izumo gave him an unimpressed look. "You're not going to tell me the answer, are you?"

"I would think that after seeing me with Naruto and my cute Anbu apprentice that you wouldn't have to ask that question by now," the man demurred.

The chunin huffed grumpily but stared down at his own teacup. There must be a trick to this. Okay, Kakashi felt that he had all the information he needed to put the puzzle together, and Izumo was determined not to prove him wrong. He'd assumed originally that it was just a matter of practicing his chakra transformations, but maybe he'd been thinking about it the wrong way. He doubted that the jounin would be in his apartment giving him tips if all he needed to do was practice more. What if he was doing something fundamentally incorrect, like he had with yin-yang transformation?

"Water follows the path of least resistance, which is why it's hard to force it to go against that path," the chunin muttered. Kakashi nodded encouragingly. "For some reason it was important that the tea goes over the lip without falling, and that it _does_ fall when acted by a greater force, maybe even that it pulls other water with it…"

Izumo turned the information over in his head, trying to figure out how it all fit together. It was almost like playing with a puzzle and rearranging the tiles in different ways to see how their edges matched up. When the answer finally occurred to him, the chunin gaped at the other man, gob smacked.

"That looks like the face of an epiphany!" Kakashi chirped.

"Water follows the path of least resistance!" Izumo cried. "It's difficult to force it to move the way I want it because I'm _forcing_ it. I'm pushing it and pulling it, trying to make it take the shape that I want. I should be convincing it that _it_ wants to take that shape."

"Bingo," the jounin said.

The brunet ignored him. "Water has other properties, like its adhesiveness, that encourage certain movements. It's called water nature _transformation_ for a reason: because my chakra should be taking on the characteristics of water. If I can coax it to move rather than pull at it…"

Izumo's hand hovered above his tea, and he reached his chakra down into the liquid. He seeped the energy into the water, mixing with it, doing the best he could to have the chakra _become_ water. Finally, when he was convinced that he had it down, he slowly raised his hand. His chakra was like water, and when he 'pulled' it upwards, the rest of the fluid followed, until he was holding a globe of water above his hand just like Kakashi's.

The brunet stared at the tea. It was so easy, so simple. It was like he'd only been doing water ninjutsu halfway his entire life. Izumo replaced the tea inside the cup and set it down on the table with a clatter. He collapsed back against his chair, staring blankly at the wall. For years he'd assumed (just like with his yin-yang transformation) that he's simply been _bad_ at water ninjutsu. It was one of the reasons that he'd developed the Syrup Trap. The technique didn't require any fine manipulation, but was still extremely useful. How long… how much time had he wasted making negative assumptions about himself when he could have been training and growing stronger? Had he been the only thing holding himself back?

"I feel like an idiot," Izumo groaned.

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Kakashi said, uncharacteristically serious. "Not everyone has the privilege of being instructed by geniuses. I wouldn't be nearly the shinobi that I am today if I hadn't had the Fourth as my sensei." The man paused, taking another sip out of his glass. It didn't even leave a wet mark on his mask. "Our village is built around teamwork. It's part of the Will of Fire that the Third preaches. Someone should have noticed your mistakes sooner. It's our responsibility as much as yours."

The chunin suddenly had a vivid memory of the Third apologizing for not seeing him reach his fullest potential.

"But Izumo," Kakashi smiled. "You don't have to figure this stuff out all on your own now. You're part of a team, and we've all got your back."

Izumo suddenly felt the urge to throw himself at the other man and give him a hug, and mourned the fact that he wasn't a child anymore and that it wouldn't be proper. Grasping for something to say, he weakly stated: "Um, I'm not actually a part of the squad just yet."

Kakashi waved his hand dismissively. "Semantics."

The chunin shook his head, disbelieving. "Kakashi, _thank you_. Really. If it hadn't been for you…" Ninja didn't just give away knowledge and tricks freely. Most exchanges were reciprocal, but Izumo didn't have any sort of technique that he could possibly teach the jounin. Plus, anything that he _did_ have, the man could copy effortlessly with his sharingan.

"Let me make you dinner," he blurted. Food was the next-best thing after knowledge, Izumo supposed.

"Oh, um… if you insist." The other man finally looked less than completely at ease, his uncovered eye darting around the room.

"I do! Please, stay here."

Izumo leapt off the couch and scrambled into his kitchen, searching for food. He had a feeling that Kakashi would find an excuse to leave it he took too long, so he just made a quick stir fry with chicken and vegetables that he found in his refrigerator, cooking white rice on the side. Before long, he called out into the living room. "Food's ready!"

The chunin put out a couple of plates and dished the meal onto them. Once everything was set, two glasses of water in front of the plates, silverware to the side, he sat down. Izumo glanced up at Kakashi and his breath caught. At first, he was surprised by the fact that the other man's mask was down, but that only lasted a moment. What really caught him off guard was how _attractive_ the jounin was. The man looked somewhat plain when only a sliver of his face was showing, but now Izumo could see almost all of it, and it was a really nice face indeed.

"Erm. When I eat at home I take my mask off… I thought it would be rude to leave it on here," the jounin explained awkwardly.

Realizing that he was staring, Izumo blushed. "That's fine! It was just your face- Not that there's anything wrong with it!" he insisted, mortified. "In fact, there's nothing wrong with it at all. On the contrary, it's a very good looking face- I'll just shut up now." The chunin took a forkful of the stir fry and shoved it in his mouth. At least the food tasted nice.

Kakashi tilted his head to the side a bit, studying him a bit, before grinning. The expression had a lot more of an effect on Izumo with his mask off. He felt his pulse pick up a bit. "I didn't realize you thought so highly of me," the man said slyly.

"Oh shut up," the chunin grumbled. "Eat your food."

Obligingly, the older (but younger in absolute terms?) man raised a fork to his mouth and took a bite. He hummed in surprise. "This is very good!" Kakashi exclaimed. The rest of the food disappeared into his mouth at a rapid pace. Izumo looked on in disbelief. He supposed that the other man was used to eating all his meals in one gulp so that no one could see under his mask.

"Uh, there's more in the pan if you want."

"Yes, please!"

Izumo chuckled, but the silence afterwards was a bit awkward. "So, I suppose a lot of people have seen your face then, if you show it to anyone who cooks for you?" he asked, mostly to fill the void.

"Actually," Kakashi mused. "You're the first person in years—outside of my Anbu team—who's made a meal for me."

"Really!" cried the chunin. That would explain the desperate eating earlier. If no one cooked for the man… and Kakashi didn't really seem like the culinary type… Well, Izumo imaged there was a lot of takeout in the jounin's life.

The white-haired man scratched at his cheek sheepishly. "Um, is there a polite way to say that everyone I've ever loved is dead?"

Izumo's face fell. "No, not really," he said quietly. The other man looked like he regretted killing the mood, so the chunin continued. "My entire family died, either in the Third War or during the Nine Tail's attack. When I was a kid I used to have parents and aunts and uncles… even an older brother." Izumo rarely talked about this stuff, but Kakashi didn't prompt him to continue.

"We all lost someone that day," Kakashi said softly. Izumo nodded in agreement.

They both kept eating in silence, but it didn't feel awkward anymore; rather, it was comforting knowing that the two of them understood each other's pain, at least to some extent. When all the food was gone, the jounin lingered for a moment, but then cleared his throat.

"I think I'd better get going," the white haired man said.

"Wait," Izumo requested, moving around the table so that they were face to face. A hug still seemed to strange to initiate, so he wrapped his hand gently around Kakashi's bicep and squeezed lightly. "I really appreciate what you did for me tonight… If you ever need someone to cool you a meal, or you get tired of eating alone, you're welcome here any time."

The jounin smiled at him, but it was something far softer than his usual bubbly ones. Those always felt a bit like they were just for show. Kakashi's expression now felt like it was a secret for him, a reward almost. Izumo couldn't help but smile back. "I'll keep that in mind," the white haired man promised quietly, before pulling his mask up and hopping out the window. Izumo hadn't even realized that it had been open the whole time. Cat would've skinned him for being so unobservant.

He closed the window and moved towards the kitchen. Izumo started washing the dishes, but then cocked his head. Focusing chakra into his hand, the chunin watched as the water slowly warped around it, easily forming shapes and patterns that he'd never had the fine control to make previously. Izumo smiled. He definitely owed the copy nin.

"If you need a little more time, we might be able to convince the Captain to give you another week… or maybe just a few days," Monkey said beside him, nervously. He'd already been tested by both Monkey and Cat, and passed with flying colors. Or, he'd impressed Monkey. The female Anbu had just pronounced him 'acceptable, barely' with a hard pat on the shoulder. Izumo figured that was as close to 'flying colors' as he would get from the woman.

"You don't have to be perfect at ninjutsu," Cat refuted. "Neither Monkey nor I use many of them. I mean, obviously it would be better because you aren't nearly as good as either of us at taijutsu or genjutsu, but still-"

"Cat! You're not helping," Monkey scolded. 

"I'm just trying to tell him that he doesn't have to do perfectly," the woman defended herself.

"Hey!" Izumo interrupted with a chuckle. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

They both gave him skeptical looks. (He'd gotten good at interpreting their emotions only from their body language.) In truth, he was a little nervous. He hadn't done more than manipulate a teacup's worth of water, but he did his best to be confident. Izumo knew the theory, and had worked all night on making the nature transformation faster and faster. There was no way he'd be as good as the Captain overnight, but he was certain that his improvement would be drastic, and hopefully enough to impress the stoic man.

When they reached training ground twenty-four, the feline-masked man was already waiting for them, arms crossed loosely across his chest. In contrast to the previous day, he looked completely at ease, having regained his cool. "Kamizuki, are you ready?"

Izumo nodded. He was almost at full chakra levels.

"Alright, do you want to try the water passing exercise we did yesterday?"

"No, let's go with what we've been doing the rest of the week."

The two men made their way onto the river. The captain had a natural advantage because he was standing upstream. Izumo would have to wrest control of the liquid from him fast enough that it didn't reach him. Immediately upon stepping onto the river, the chunin expanded his chakra as far out in front of him as he dared, coaxing it to take on the properties of water. It mixed with the liquid far better than his previous attempts, at least. Izumo quickly let go of it when it reached a point behind him, conserving his strength.

Soon he felt the other man's chakra-water make contact with his own. He had to convince the water that the other man controlled that _his_ way was the path of least resistance. Getting hold of the liquid was difficult, but not the impossible task it had seemed even one day earlier. Izumo was so focused on his task that he hardly noticed that he'd stopped letting go of the river behind him.

Instead, he rose steadily higher and higher. Because he wasn't releasing any water, the amount that he held control over just increased. Eventually he was standing atop a dome of fluid, perhaps ten feet above the Captain. He was quickly going to overreach the amount of water that he could hold; his chakra was draining swiftly. Suddenly, Izumo realized that he was in a favorable position. Smirking, he had his chakra convince the water that the best way to go was _outward_ , and it exploded down in all directions, including towards the Anbu member.

The man held his hands out in front of him and the deluge parted harmlessly around him. Izumo put his hands on his knees, panting, but the other man didn't attempt to submerse him anymore. Instead he was staring at the chunin, head cocked in contemplation.

"I knew you'd be fine," a familiar voice said cheerfully.

Izumo jumped a bit at the feel of Kakashi's hand on his shoulder, but he'd gotten fairly used to people showing up unexpectedly during the last week.

"Ah, I couldn't have done it without your help, Kakashi-sensei," the chunin replied teasingly.

"Maaah, don't call me that," the other man said, sounding a bit embarrassed.

"So you did help Kamizuki," the Captain stated, looking less puzzled.

"Oh, what gives you that impression?" The jounin asked innocently. The Anbu didn't bother to respond.

"So… do I pass?" Izumo asked, ignoring the byplay between the other two men.

"Your skill with water ninjutsu is… acceptable," the Anbu confirmed. Izumo heard Monkey let out a whoop from the shore.

"I did it," the chunin breathed. "I'm actually in Anbu now? No more tests?"

"No more tests," the Captain agreed. "Report here tomorrow, same time, and we'll get you outfitted and inducted properly. For now, enjoy the rest of your day."

The man disappeared, but was replaced quickly by Monkey, who bounded across the river to grab him in a one-armed hug. "Alright! Boy, you had me worried there for a second."

"Well you should have believed in me, then," countered Izumo.

"You could have told us that you had an ace up your sleeve, you jerk," Cat drawled drily.

"Now where would be the fun in that?" Kakashi chimed in. The two Anbu gave him (what Izumo imagined to be) dirty looks. The man chuckled, before making a shooing gesture at them. "Scram. Don't you have places to be? You can't take Izumo out drinking until you can show him your faces, and that's not until tomorrow night."

The other two Anbu grumbled but offered congratulations one more time before jumping off into the trees. At least Izumo could follow their movements now as they left. He turned towards the jounin.

"Kakashi… I can't thank you enough."

"Oh stop," the other man flapped his hand. "It seems like all you've been doing is thanking me. I'm just glad that my spot is going to be filled by someone capable."

Izumo beamed at the white-haired man, touched by the comment. He never dreamed that anyone—let alone the man himself—would compare him positively to the copy ninja. "Well, can I at least offer to make you dinner again?"

The man's one visible eye sharpened, and what seemed to be a smug grin overtook his face. "Kamizuki, I thought you'd never ask."

A/N: This chapter is something I've been desperate to write for weeks, which is probably why it ended up so long. It pairs my love of exposition with my love of finding creative explanations for fantasy-physics (in this case, chakra).

About the part with the "thousand years of pain": Kakashi's only original technique is supposed to be the Chidori, so I figured 'well, someone had to teach it to him'. The headcanon grew from there.

No clue when the next update will be. Definitely not before next Tuesday. I have a rough idea of what I want to get done in the next couple of chapters, but the specifics weren't neatly planned out in my head like this one was. Hopefully this will last you all for a bit though!


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

Izumo hesitated off to the side of the Konoha General Hospital. Today was the day that Kotetsu was being released from the doctors' care, and his friend was absolutely ecstatic. He wasn't the kind of man who could stand being cooped up in a hospital bed for too long. He would've gotten out a little earlier, but in his enthusiasm to walk around the hospital, he'd pulled some of his stitches. Yamada had been furious. Izumo personally thought that the doctor just kept the chunin 'in observation' as revenge more than anything.

In hindsight, Izumo had been very lucky that Kotetsu was holed up in the hospital. It was the only reason that his partner wasn't hounding his heels to find out what he'd been up to (namely, Anbu training). Now, however, he wouldn't have any excuse not to tell his friend. Furthermore, the Hokage had told Izumo that he would need to inform the other man of his promotion before he would be cleared for any missions. Kotetsu was, after all, his emergency contact and next of kin. While Anbu was a very secretive organization, next of kin (if they had any) were supposed to know about a member's status. The Third had cited mental health reforms (it was better for members to have a support system), but Izumo thought that the Hokage might just be giving him the order because he knew how close the two friends were. (In his heart, he knew that it would be unfair to go any longer without telling Kotetsu… that didn't make it easy though.)

Izumo took a deep breath and entered the hospital, making his way to room 114. He scolded himself a bit mentally, aware that he was dragging his feet. As he approached the room however, the chunin heard a bit of a ruckus. He chuckled a bit despite himself and quickened his step. Kotetsu was probably making trouble. As expected, just as he entered the room he heard Yamada's voice, exasperation clear in his tone.

"Chunin Hagane, I don't care that you've checked yourself out. I did not waste my time and chakra for you to fall down on the streets due to your stubborn insistence on pushing yourself too hard. If necessary I will hold you down physically to make you wait for your partner."

Yamada's back was to him, but Kotetsu's face lit up as soon as he saw Izumo walk through the door. "Speak of the devil, doc!" The other man gestured towards him, causing the medic to turn around. A look of profound relief made its way across his face.

"Kamizuki, thank the Gods. Please get this troublemaker off of my hands."

"Ah, of course Doctor," Izumo said sheepishly, listening to all the things he should and shouldn't allow Kotetsu to do. No heavy lifting, no lifting of any kind if they could get away with it. No twisting motions of any kind. Make sure he kept his arm below shoulder level; absolutely no reaching above his head at all.

"It would be best if he just kept it in the sling, but for some reason I doubt that we're going to be so lucky," Yamada drawled sarcastically.

"That's because you're smart, doc," Kotetsu piped in, an unrepentant grin on his face.

"Hmph," Yamada snorted grumpily. He turned to Izumo. "Regardless, his discharge forms _are_ filled out and signed. You two may leave _but do not use the roofs_ _._ Walk home on the streets."

With that, the doctor stalked out of the room, grumbling about 'idiot patients' under his breath. Izumo chuckled a bit and turned to his partner. "Sounds like you've made a new friend, huh?"

"Oh yeah, doc loves me," Kotetsu said with a grin, hopping off the hospital bed. "Deep, deep down that is. Oh boy, I can't even begin to tell you how glad I am to be out of that dusty old hospital."

Izumo smiled; his friend's joy was contagious. "Really? I thought that you'd love all the nurses fawning over you?" he joked.

Kotetsu glanced at him a little sharply for a moment, as if Izumo had said something strange, before forcing a wide smile to his face. "Ha ha," he said, each syllable dripping with sarcasm. "You know perfectly well how scary those nurses are. All I ever heard was 'stop reaching for that' and 'if you pull your stiches one more time…'. Definitely no lo- um, no interest there." The other chunin looked away, and Izumo furrowed his brow. There was something strange going on there, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"So, uh… no active duty for eight more weeks, minimum, right?" the brunet asked, trying to cut through the tension.

"And then only light duty for three more months after _that_ ," Kotetsu confirmed. He winked. "Guess it'll be gate duty for us for a while. That should make you happy, eh?"

"Eheh, uh, you know me so well," Izumo laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. Now would be the perfect time to tell him about joining Anbu, but unfortunately they were still in public. The newly healed tattoo on his right shoulder chose that moment to start itching. Izumo figured it was psychosomatic, but his fingers twitched a bit anyway with the desire to reach up and scratch it.

"So, uh… what've you been up to recently? It feels like I barely saw you while I was in the hospital?"

Izumo immediately felt guilty. He'd been so preoccupied with his training that he'd barely spared any time to visit his infirmed best friend. "Oh, um. I've been training actually," he admitted.

"Training pretty hard, huh?" Kotetsu mused. He glanced over slyly. "I guess you've been taking what you said to Naruto pretty seriously then. Am I gonna have to catch up to when I can finally move my arm again?"

The chunin opened his mouth to joke back, but the words rang too true for his comfort. Really, in just this short amount of time he'd probably surpassed his partner. Later, after months of missions and work in the Black Ops…? He did his best to deflect the question by laughing and ducking his head with embarrassment.

The remaining five minutes until they reached Kotetsu's apartment were awkward. Izumo was aware that there was something going on with his friend, and he had a feeling that the other man knew that he was holding something back as well. Eventually they reached the apartment, and Izumo felt both relieved as well as a sense of dread that he'd be out of excuses not to fess up. Kotetsu fumbled a bit with the keys, swearing under his breath. "I can't believe I'm going to have to do everything left handed from here on out," he grumbled before finally unlocking the door.

The two of them walked through the entrance and Kotetsu collapsed down on his couch, sighing with pleasure. "Oh couch, I've missed you so," he cried mournfully, rubbing his body against it like a dog.

"Careful of your stitches," Izumo chided lightly. The other man made a face.

"Ugh, I knew you'd be such a drag," he said with a roll of his eyes. "I'm not going to have any fun with you hovering over my shoulder the whole time."

Izumo couldn't quite repress his wince in time, and he saw Kotetsu's eyes narrow. The other man glanced at the floor. There was a pause. "So, I can't decide if you're mad at me for getting hurt or upset at yourself for letting it happen."

His eyes widened. "Ko', no it's not like that," Izumo insisted. "Well, I _am_ guilty about the fact that you were hurt, but it's not like I'm angry or anything!"

"Right," his friend said skeptically. "Is that why I've only seen you four times in the past two weeks? And that's counting today."

Izumo opened his mouth to make another excuse, but closed it. He had to tell Kotetsu the truth anyway, so there was no point in hiding it from him any further. The brunet worked his jaw a bit, trying to force the words out, but sighed in defeat. The sleeves of his shirt only went down to his elbows. He'd made that decision with this particular situation in mind. Wordlessly, the shorter man pushed up his right sleeve, revealing the tattoo now present on his upper arm.

Kotetsu stared at blankly it for at least five seconds before exploding. "Izumo! Are you _insane_? You can't just get that tattooed on yourself. You'll be lucky if all they do is cut your arm off!" The other man gaped at him. "Where the hell did you even get that done, anyway? There's no tattoo artist in Konoha in their right mind that would put that design on someone."

Izumo winced. "It's not a fake," he said softly.

"That's not funny, Izumo," his friend replied, a flat expression on his face.

"It's not a joke, Kotetsu," he said solemnly, trying to sound as firm as possible. "The Hokage… he heard of what I said to Naruto, told me that he could see the will of fire in me. He recommended me for a position because one of the members was leaving."

Kotetsu gaped at him. "And you _accepted_? Izumo! You know that I admire you, buddy, but you're not Anbu material."

The chunin winced. He didn't blame his friend for being doubtful of his abilities, but it still stung. "I got better," Izumo said lamely.

"Really? In two weeks, you got good enough to go into Anbu." It wasn't a question. "Izumo, listen to yourself. Two weeks ago you couldn't even defeat Mizuki. How do you expect to go up against the kind of opponents you'll face in Anbu?"

Izumo had never expected Kotetsu to understand right away. The other man had a right to be genuinely concerned about his safety. Furthermore, he'd always told his friend that he wanted to retire in Administration (mainly because it was easier to pretend that he didn't want things that he thought he'd never be strong enough to achieve). Still, he'd hoped it wouldn't be so difficult.

He took a deep breath. Alright, he'd practiced this in front of the mirror. "Kotetsu. I know it seems incredible, but I've improved a lot as a shinobi since you've been in the hospital. It turns out that all the pieces were there; I was just putting them together the wrong way. I've had a lot of help from a lot of very, very skilled ninja. But what matters more is that this is important to me. I want to get stronger so that I can protect my home, and I realized that I wasn't going to be able to do that if I stayed static."

"Is this… Is this because of what you told me last month?" Kotetsu asked abruptly.

Izumo furrowed his brow. "What do you mean?" What had he told his friend last month? Or, rather what did he remember telling his friend (for him) over two and a half years ago?

"Are you serious?" the other man laughed bitterly. "You're going to play this game? You know I hate it when you act like you don't know what I'm talking about."

He couldn't help but stare at Kotetsu. Shoot, this was something important then. Before he had enough time to think things through, the taller man scowled.

"Alright, you need me to say it? Izumo, is this some kind of twisted punishment for rejecting you?"

Oh, shit. A month ago, in this time period, he'd confessed his feelings to Kotetsu. In Izumo's memories, things were awkward for a few months before they settled down and everything was mainly the same, even if he caught his friend shooting him concerned looks from time to time. Getting it off his chest had helped him get a sense of closure; eventually it stopped hurting and things returned to normal. For Kotetsu though… well that explained why he was so awkward about Izumo's comment about the nurses, at least.

"No, Kotetsu. It's not anything like that. This isn't about you… it's just an opportunity that came up."

"Right, so we're awkward around each other for weeks, and then you just happen to take the first chance you could get to go as far away from me as possible? You just _happen_ to take the one assignment that I can't possibly follow you on."

Izumo winced. Kotetsu was injured and would be on light duty for close to half a year. He wouldn't be able to even think about joining Anbu until his physical therapy was done, which should be at least a full year, and then the conditioning required to get strong enough to join Anbu would probably be even more time on top of that. If Izumo _was_ trying to avoid his friend, this would be the ideal way to do it.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, but I promise you that isn't my reason. I didn't want to spring this on you, but I'm going on my first mission tomorrow, and I don't want to part on bad terms," pleaded Izumo.

Kotetsu stared at him. "Your first mission? Izumo… I can't condone this. You're going to get yourself killed." The man looked honestly distressed. He knew that his friend was genuinely concerned about him dying. Still, it was kind of humiliating that his best friend in the world thought so little of him, no matter how justified it was.

"Uh, I can see that you need more time to… process this. I think I'll just leave you to that," Izumo said thickly, getting out of his chair.

He couldn't help but think that the worst part about this whole situation was that Kotetsu didn't call for him to come back.

It had been two hours since he'd left Kotetsu's apartment, and he still wasn't sure what he was feeling. Scratch that. Izumo was feeling angry, and upset, and guilty and sad and embarrassed and… too many 'and's. He just wasn't sure which emotion was more prevalent, which he should put more stock in. The brunet sighed explosively. He needed to get a good night's sleep tonight to ensure that he would be on top form to perform all of his mission duties the next day.

"Uh, am I interrupting something?" a voice asked tentatively.

Izumo leapt off the couch and flung a kunai towards the source of the sound, in this case it was in the direction of his window. His instincts were on high alert, honed at this point to respond to any disturbance with lethal force. The intruder reached out and plucked the knife from the air nimbly. The chunin's motions stilled immediately.

"Maa… you have very violent reflexes, Izumo," Kakashi said, blinking in surprise.

The brunet flushed. "Oh my goodness! Kakashi, I'm so sorry. You caught me off guard and of course Cat has gotten me trained to respond to intruders with knives." He was still more used to referring to the woman by her call sign than her actual name.

Kakashi just laughed. "I didn't say that it was a bad thing," he smiled. "On the contrary; it may save your life someday."

Izumo was still a bit embarrassed, and chuckled. "Maybe next time you can try knocking?" he suggested.

"Now, where's the fun in that?"

The chunin sighed, but he wasn't really irritated. To be honest, he appreciated the distraction. "Um, is there anything I can do for you?"

The other man looked visibly uncomfortable, even with the mask on. He appeared as though if he were any less well-trained, he would be shifting from foot to foot. Instead, there was a strange stillness to him. The jounin raised his right arm (the one without a kunai) and Izumo noticed the bag in his hand for the first time. "Ah, well I realized that I ate your food last time without paying, so I thought I'd get you some more."

Izumo rolled his eyes. "I'm not a restaurant, Kakashi. I made you that meal as a gift. You don't need to pay me back."

"Oh. Well, if you don't want it…" The other man rubbed at the back of his head and inched away towards the window.

The brunet laughed and reached his hands out. "If you went to the trouble of buying the ingredients for me, I might as well take a look at least."

The jounin handed over the bag sheepishly. Inside were two onions, a green pepper, two chicken breasts, a bag of rice, and black beans. "Oh wow! This is all good stuff." Izumo grinned at the white-haired man. "To be quite honest, I kind of thought it would all be pasta. I'm assuming you don't make yourself meals very often."

Kakashi chuckled. "Well, I actually went to the grocer and asked her to pick me out whatever was most useful for people who cooked, so…"

There was a pause before Izumo started cracking up, bending over with laughter. Kakashi scratched at his cheek with a grin. "Oh lord. I'm sorry. You caught me off guard." The brunet smiled at the other man fondly. "You are certainly a character, Kakashi Hatake. Come on."

"Where are we going?" the other man asked with amusement.

"To the kitchen of course. I might as well go ahead and cook this up for you. I bet this was all just a secret plot to get me to make you a meal," Izumo joked. Kakashi froze for an instant before continuing on smoothly.

"Kakashi!" he scolded with a grin. "Oh my goodness, I was joking, but that's right isn't it?"

"Sorry, you don't have to do anything for me. It was rude of me to barge in." The taller man had 'sheepish' down to an art form.

Izumo shook his head. "When I told you that you were welcome to stop by anytime, I was being serious. You did me a big favor." Plus, it kind of made him sad to think of the jounin sitting alone in his apartment, heating up instant noodles. "There's no need for you to buy me the groceries though."

"Hm, if you say so…" the jounin drawled. Izumo had the feeling that he wouldn't win this argument. Fine. Kakashi spent over a decade as a jounin and an Anbu member. His bank account probably put Izumo's to shame.

"Do you want to help me?" he asked suddenly. Kakashi blinked at him.

"Ah, I'm not sure if I'm the best person to do that," the man demurred.

Izumo smiled. "Trust me, this isn't gourmet. I imagine you're fully qualified to chop vegetables." He glanced down at the kunai that the other man was still gripping loosely, spinning it lazily by the ring. Kakashi's hand stilled immediately.

"Ah, does it matter what size?"

"Nope. Just make sure to peel the outside of the onion first, and cut out the stem of the pepper." He handed the other man a cutting board and then turned to get a pan. "Where did I put the tin foil," he muttered to himself. By the time he got back to the counter, Kakashi had—with shinobi-like swiftness—already peeled the onion. He was working at peeling the next layer off.

"Ah, Kakashi," he interjected, hiding a smile behind his hand. "I maybe should have clarified that onions are _entirely_ layers. You only need to peel the leaves… otherwise you'll be peeling until there's nothing left."

The man blinked, and chuckled. "Right," he said, before raising the kunai. Izumo coughed and glanced at the block of kitchen knives in front of the man. He was impressed at how Kakashi smoothly turned the motion into a toss, expertly lobbing the weapon so that it landed ring-first on the hook of the towel holder. The white-haired man grabbed a meat cleaver and started chopping the onions messily. Izumo decided not to correct him. He wasn't a snob about his knives and it wasn't a big deal.

The other man's sole eye blinked, glancing down at the third chicken breast in front of Izumo, hands stilling. "Did I not buy enough?" he asked.

"You bought plenty," Izumo refuted. In truth, after seeing how much the taller man ate last week, he'd figured that one chicken breast each wouldn't satisfy them. "The first rule about cooking: always make more than you think you need. Worst case scenario is that you have leftovers."

"I love leftovers," Kakashi murmured gleefully.

"Everyone loves leftovers," Izumo agreed with a smile. "This is super easy though: line the pan with tin foil—just to make it easier to clean in the end—throw in the chicken and veggies, and put some sauce over it."

After Izumo added the breasts Kakashi obediently dumped his vegetable chunks into the pan. They were kind of blocky and ugly, but luckily that wouldn't affect the taste at all. He added some vinegar and olive oil, as well as seasoning, and stuck it in the oven. "Now all we have to do is wait about an hour for it to cook," he said brightly. It was nice to have someone to do this with. Kotetsu was always willing to eat but never to cook… Oh, and now he'd made himself depressed. Izumo sighed.

"Did we forget to put an ingredient in, sensei?"

Izumo smiled a bit at the joke, but it was weak and Kakashi looked like he knew it too. "No, nothing like that. I just had a bit of a rough day, is all."

The other man eyed him carefully. "Did your friend not take it well when you told him about your new job?"

Izumo gaped at the man. "How did you know that?"

"Well, it _is_ my job to be able to analyze people, see their motivations, look underneath the underneath, that sort of thing."

The chunin shook his head wryly. With how incompetent the man was at basic household duties like cooking, it was easy to forget that Kakashi was a genius of the highest order. He was probably an open book to the other man. "No, Kotetsu didn't take the news very well," Izumo confirmed, averting his gaze.

"Hm," the other man hummed, but he sounded a bit solemn. "What was his objection, if you don't mind me asking?"

Izumo waved a hand dismissively. "It's fine. I should probably talk to someone about it anyways. Normally…" Normally Kotetsu was the one he'd be discussing this sort of thing with. "I think it's a mixture of things," the chunin began. "I think he's a bit betrayed by me leaving him behind. We've been partners for close to a decade now. It's hard for me to think about splitting that up; I'm sure that the same is true for him as well.

"More than that, though, I think that he's worried about me. Kotetsu's always been a bit better than me at combat. Ever since we were kids, I was the smart one and he was the tough one who looked out for me. It's still hard for me to think about how much I've grown in such a short period of time." Izumo paused, taking a breath, before deciding to continue. "He told me that I'm going to get myself killed," he said softly.

Kakashi was silent for a while. "It's hard," he finally began, "for someone to love an Anbu member. Our missions are dangerous in their very nature, either to our bodies or to our souls. Anbu exists to take on tasks that are too dangerous or too horrible for normal ninja to handle. Kotetsu's right; you very well could end up dying."

There was another pause. "You're kind of terrible at motivational speeches, Kakashi."

The man smiled humorlessly. "I'm not done. For the Contacts, as we call them—people who know about our status—each mission is a burden. They can't know about the details; even the rankings are top secret. Every time we leave, they don't know if they'll see us again. They don't know if the next time they meet up with us, whether or not the blood on our hands will be from an innocent civilian or the scum of the earth. It's not a life that I'd wish on anyone. That's why I—and many others in the Organization—choose not to maintain close personal contacts outside of it. Most of the people you see will either do their time and get out quickly or they won't interact much with ninja on the outside."

There was another break in the conversation. This time Izumo didn't interrupt, feeling the gravity of what Kakashi was saying. He thought of Kotetsu, not knowing if he was going to come home, or if he would come home the same person that left. "You should be compassionate towards your friend," the former captain continued. "He doesn't have the luxury of knowing that you're in the best position you possibly could be."

Izumo's mouth opened. "Huh…?" Wasn't Kakashi just telling him about how awful things were? 

"I left a comrade behind once, for the sake of the mission, back in the Third War. I never made that mistake again. On that day, I learned that people who disobey the rules are trash, but those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash. In all my years as an Anbu Captain, I refused to tolerate anyone on my squad that didn't adhere to that same policy. The Organization isn't kind, Izumo, but I can promise you that no other team will have your back to the same extent that mine will. They know the value of their teammates."

Kakashi smiled at him, and he blinked back, stunned. "I… I guess I never thought about it that way."

"How could you? You didn't know. Also," the jounin leaned in close. "Don't forget what I said last time. If I felt that you weren't capable of looking after my old teammates, I wouldn't have allowed you to do so. I may be retired but I still have a lot of pull in the Organization. You're a capable shinobi, Izumo, and you're only getting better. There's no doubt in my mind that you'll make an excellent Anbu."

He wanted to duck his head, embarrassed by the compliment, but it didn't feel right to break Kakashi's eye contact. "I don't really know what to say," Izumo mumbled. "I'm honored that you feel that way."

"Maa, I'm only telling the truth."

"Really Kakashi," he insisted. "Hearing from somebody like you… hearing you say things like that…" Izumo trailed off, not really having the words to describe what it meant to him.

The other man flapped his hands. "Now you're embarrassing me! Maybe we should agree not to give each other compliments."

Izumo chuckled. "Okay, only insults from now on then. The fact that all that's showing of your entire face is just one eye is ridiculous," he teased.

Kakashi pouted. "Well only covering one eye is ridiculous," the man countered childishly, reaching forward and brushing his bangs aside.

"Alright, maybe we shouldn't get too far into this," the chunin laughed, leaning away.

"Agreed," the white-haired man said cheerfully. "Are you feeling a bit better about your mission tomorrow, at least?"

Izumo hummed, considering. "You know what? I think I am. Maybe you aren't so bad at that motivational speech thing after all."

It was the truth. He was feeling very positive about his chances, for once. If Kakashi believed in him… well, maybe he'd make a halfway decent Anbu member after all.

At half past eight the next morning, Izumo was waiting at the team's designated meeting point. Cat and Monkey were already there, lounging with their masks off. He'd spent the past few days training with them outside of full uniform, so was only a little bit strange to see them looking so casual. Cat was a woman that he'd known of, tangentially. He and Yugao Uzuki hadn't really crossed paths, but he knew of her existence. Monkey, on the other hand, Izumo had never met. The man—almost a boy, actually—had introduced himself as Kage, but the chunin imaged that was a codename. Kage was nineteen years old, with dark eyes and brown, wavy hair. He was what was known as a Lifer, someone who'd been skilled enough to enter Anbu at a young age, and never left. Most lifers were like Kage or the Captain, who (unlike Kakashi) had no reputation—as well as few to no friends—outside the Organization.

The three of them were waiting on the Captain to arrive with the mission details. Izumo had been startled to realize that he knew the man. The brunet had introduced himself as Tenzo, rather than Yamato though. He wondered which name was the fake and which one was real. Of course, he'd never interacted with the Anbu in his other life, but news of the Wood Release user had spread like wildfire, especially since he was Naruto and Sakura's interim sensei. It was pretty exciting to be under the command of someone like that. Izumo supposed that the man's abilities were meant to be a secret, but maybe he'd get a chance to see Wood Release close and personal (although after seeing the First Hokage fight the ten-tails from afar, maybe it wouldn't be all that impressive in comparison).

Before he could get too lost in his thoughts, Tenzo jumped down into the clearing, face passive as always. Yugao and Kage stood up at attention, and Izumo quickly followed suit. "Do you have the mission details?" the purple-haired woman asked.

The Captain nodded. "We were assigned a B-rank mission near the border of the Lands of Fire and Waterfall." It was probably two days travel, at a sustained ninja-level pace. "Intelligence has caught notice of a bandit troupe that's operating in that area. They believe it to consist of around ten to twenty fighters. Most of them are just sell swords or genin-level shinobi dropouts. They're led by fairly capable missing nin. Konoha has been keeping an eye on the group, but so far we haven't been contracted to take them out, so we've let them be for now.

"As it turns out, the leader is chunin missing ninja Ren Saito of the Village Hidden in Waterfalls. They claim that they haven't gone after him because they want to respect our borders, and he's always been careful to keep to our side. Waterfall asked us to retrieve him as a diplomatic favor. Due to the international nature of the mission, the Hokage thought it best that an Anbu team be sent out."

Kage snorted. "I'm sure that the show of force to our good friends would have nothing to do with it."

"Sending an Anbu team on a comparatively easy mission would make it seem like we're so strong, we have troops to spare," Izumo muttered softly. Tenzo nodded approvingly (if his blank face could be considered approving, that is). It was awfully convenient that it would be an easy start for the newbie member, as well. The Third was good at killing entire flocks of birds with one stone. (Maybe that had something to do with his skill with the shadow-shuriken technique.)

"So we're going to go do a B-ranked mission for them, for free," Yugao asked, unimpressed.

"Of course not," refuted Tenzo. "As soon as we received the missive from Waterfall the Hokage sent a courier to the local Lord in the area, and negotiated a contract with him."

"So we're double dipping?" smirked Kage. The Captain nodded. "Gotta love the Third's way of doing business," Monkey continued.

"Indeed," Tenzo continued. "There's one more order of business before we set off. Izumo." The man extended a hand towards him, and the chunin recognized the sight of a mask in his hands. His breath caught for a moment. There was no doubt that was _his_ mask. This was it; he was going to really be Anbu after this moment. Careful not to allow his hands to tremble or anything embarrassing like that, Izumo took the object from his captain. He analyzed it, going over the black whisker marks, the red designs around the eyes, the ears. Wait a minute… was this…?

"A mouse?" The chunin blurted suddenly. The rest of his team was grinning at him. Well, Tenzo's eyes went from 'flinty' to 'amused'. That counted.

"You're welcome to design your own mask later," the brunet said, but Izumo got the impression that he'd be made fun of mercilessly either way.

"It's… it's because you're so meek," Kage managed to get out between laughs. The chunin shot him a glare, which just seemed to amuse him further.

Okay, so he'd hoped for something cool, like a tiger or a bear, but the design on the mask had nothing to do with his abilities or capabilities. If it lured enemies into a trap, making them think that he was weaker than he was, all the better. Izumo stubbornly lifted it to his face and secured it. He'd thought previously that the Anbu masks were made out of porcelain, but it was clearly not any sort of pottery. It was lightweight but felt strong enough to hold up to the kind of rigors that it would experience on missions.

The Captain followed his lead, securing the feline mask to his face, and sobering, their other two teammates did the same. "Alright team Ro, let's head out."

Wordlessly, all four of them leapt into the branches of the forest around them, heading north. The Anbu travelled in a diamond formation, with the Captain at the front and Cat in the rear. Izumo was on the left and Kage on the right. At first, the new Anbu was tense, looking out for any sign of ambush. That bush was wiggling! No, just a rabbit. He kept expecting anything to go wrong. By the second hour of their journey, he'd relaxed into a cautiously alert state. By the end of the day, it didn't feel any different from travelling with chunin companions.

"How was your first day as an Anbu, Mouse?" Cat teased him quietly.

"It was fine," he replied truthfully. This was hardly the first B-ranked mission he'd ever been on (he even had a couple of A-ranks under his belt!). The only real differences between his time as an Anbu and a chunin were the mask and the speed of travel.

"Good. You're on first watch, Mouse," the Captain called over.

The first watch was often the easiest. Izumo had no doubt that was intentional. Luckily the night passed uneventfully, and he woke up the Captain for the middle watch when his time was up. The other man made a show of turning over in his bed roll, but the chunin noticed that the man's eyes weren't puffy, and there was no indication that the other man had slept at all. He'd probably been acting as Izumo's silent backup for his first watch as an Anbu member.

He slept surprisingly well through the rest of the night. It might have been that he was tired from the day's travel, or the knowledge that he was with some of the strongest ninja in Konoha, but he had no problems falling asleep. The next day was even easier than the first. The squad traveled in an inverted diamond formation, with Yugao in front. Since she was a sensor, she could let them know if they were getting too close to their targets. It was just past midday when she held out a fist. The four of them slowly came to a stop.

"There's a large group of chakra-sensitive people… roughly a kilometer away from us."

Tenzo nodded. "Alright, we'll set up camp here. Cat, keep track of them. See if you can determine numbers for us."

While Yugao formed a Ram sign and focused on her task. The remaining three Anbu began preparing the camp, which consisted mainly of finding good tree branches to sleep on. This close to the enemy, there would be no fires or whole-digging. Their best advantage was that the opponents had no idea they were coming. Because there were so little preparations (the Captain was off setting a perimeter), Izumo and Kage were quickly left with nothing to do.

"Poor Cat," the other man mused. "Dog used to help her with this stuff. Use his summons to figure out a lot of the details that were harder for her to fill in."

"Yeah," Izumo agreed. "It'd be a lot easier if we had another sensor type on the team."

The chunin continued scanning their surroundings for signs of intruders, and so it took him a while to notice Kage staring at him pensively. "What? Do I have something on my mask?" he asked self-consciously.

"Hey, Mouse… have you ever tried learning how to sense?"

"Uh, no more than baseline awareness. I was tested, of course, but I never had the affinity." It was on the long list of special skills that people thought he might have had due to his excellent chakra control but never panned out.

His friend (well, Izumo thought of them as friends, anyway) hummed at him. "Is that 'don't have the aptitude' like you didn't have the aptitude for yin-yang manipulation, or didn't have the aptitude for advanced water nature transformation?" the man asked sarcastically.

Izumo blushed, glad for the mask shielding his face. He did his best not to give any physical indicators of his embarrassment, but he wasn't sure that he did so well.

"Hey Cat, you ready for a break yet?" Monkey called out, a mischievous note in his voice.

"Ah, no, I really _don't_ have any skill at sensing. There's no need to waste her time," Izumo chuckled.

"Yeah," Yugao grunted, ignoring the newest member. "So we're trying to see if the kid has any skill at sensing?"

Kid? He was the oldest person on the team, even without counting his years in the future. Before he could protest that they really didn't need to do this, Kage spoke over him. "Yeah, can you give him some tips?"

"Hm," she started. Izumo sighed. At this point he might as well go along with it. "Well what do you know about the difference between innate sensors and taught sensors?"

"Um, not much. I know that the first group tends to be better than the second." And that the first knew it innately while the second had to be taught, but that sounded so obvious that he didn't want to risk her ire by saying it out loud.

"Not exactly, but it's a common misconception. Innate sensors—people like me—have the talent from birth. Most of us start sensing things on our own, which is how the skill is identified, usually. Taught sensors have an affinity for the technique that's almost like nature manipulation. Some people are better at it, while others don't have any talent for it whatsoever. While innate sensors on average have better range and clarity of their perception, that's by no means a rule. The Second Hokage was a taught sensor. He had to touch the ground to 'activate' his senses, rather than them always being active at a low level like an innate sensor's would be. However, the man was capable of sensing people with near perfect clarity, even entire countries away. I've never heard of any sensor, innate or otherwise, capable of repeating that feat."

Izumo thought that there might have been someone on Sasuke's Hawk team that was supposed to be able to do something like that, but he wasn't sure. Regardless, he'd have no reason to know about it now. He just nodded.

"So, now we get to the key concept of sensing. Tell me, what do you know about natural chakra?" Yugao asked.

Izumo cocked his head. "Well, the theory is that every living thing produces chakra, not just humans. Animals, plants, even the countless microorganisms around us all produce it. Because the vast majority of them have no intention behind it, or any will to use the chakra, it sort of becomes an ambient field that stretches everywhere in the world. There are legends that some people, Sages, are actually able to manipulate it and become incredibly powerful."

They were no legends, of course. He'd seen Naruto do it firsthand against Pein and then against the Ten-Tails. However, the Izumo of this time period would have no reason to ever have come in contact with one.

"Right," Cat nodded. "Sensors actually use that blanket field as well."

"Sensors are sages?" Izumo blurted out, shocked.

Yugao laughed. "No, of course not. Think of it like sound. Have you ever put your ear to a metal pole and had someone tap it on the other end? It sounds a lot more clear and close than it would otherwise. That's because sound travels faster through solids than liquids or air, and even faster through metal. A similar concept applies to sensing. You don't _use_ natural chakra, ever, or take it into your body. That would be incredibly dangerous. Instead, you should just sort of… brush your chakra over it, make the slightest connection. A human being's chakra—particularly someone who's trained in using it—has a very distinct echo. When I sense things, I 'feel' the 'sounds' of their chakra as it's transmitted through the blanket of natural chakra around the world, for lack of better terms."

"Wow, that's incredible," Izumo breathed. "I can't imagine what that would be like."

"Well if we're lucky you will soon," Kage joked wryly. He shot the younger man a nasty look, but unfortunately the mouse mask blocked it. Pity.

"We'll try. I know the theory behind taught sensing but obviously I could only help him if he figured out how to make the connection himself. I never had to learn that part. Sit down and try to keep your body completely still," Yugao instructed. Izumo did as he was told, mostly just because he didn't want to risk the woman's wrath.

"Calm yourself. Try to become one with the life around you. Feel the bark of the tree and the insects on your skin. When you feel a sensation almost like being immersed in a fuzzy comforter, or being underwater, let me know."

"I feel it," Izumo said immediately, surprised. He'd only ever been able to perceive fleeting glimpses of the natural chakra field during his training in the past. This place must be unusually saturated with life.

"You feel it?" Yugao asked, sounding a bit startled. "Good! That's… I mean, try to reach your chakra out and touch it as lightly as you can. Do _not_ take any into your body; that can be catastrophic."

Of course. 'Blanket' wasn't the right word for the nature chakra. It existed in three dimensional space, more like a field, surrounding him at every point. Cautiously, he extended a thin probe of chakra out of his hands. It moved through the field, without coming into contact with anything. Huh. Maybe the intent mattered. Izumo focused on having his energy _touch_ the field.

Instantly, the world changed. There were… 'noises' didn't even begin to describe them, but there was no other word for the sensation. It was like hearing and seeing and feeling all at once. Countless beings surrounded him in every direction: in front, behind, to the sides, above, even deep within the earth. Izumo lost all perception of the ground and the trees, only able to feel natural energy around him in a bubble. It was like going blind and deaf but also like finding out that he'd been blind and deaf before, and just now opening his eyes and ears. It was incredibly disorienting, and after a split second he jerked his chakra back reflexively.

Izumo's eyes flew open, and he was relieved to see that his vision hadn't changed. Cat and Monkey were looking at him with expressions he couldn't read behind their masks.

"Lord, Mouse. The people that trained you should be thrown in jail for gross incompetence. I've never seen a taught sensor connect to natural chakra so quickly. With some practice you could be excellent at it," Yugao said incredulously.

"Told you so," crowed Kage smugly.

"Indeed," agreed Tenzo. The three of them jumped, startled by their Captain's sudden appearance in front of them. "But don't you think that the middle of a mission may not be the best time for this?"

"Right, sorry Captain. It was my fault," Monkey admitted sheepishly. Tenzo didn't rebuke any of them though, just nodding in acknowledgment.

Izumo was again grateful for his mask. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to get away with his dumbfounded look otherwise. The chunin shut his mouth with a click. Yugao was wrong; this definitely wasn't another case of poor teaching or an opportunity missed on his part. His mentors in the Barrier Division had spent weeks trying to drill it into his head. They'd really liked him (apparently they were avid cards fans) and had wanted to get him on the team. His friends had tried every trick they knew to get him to suddenly develop the ability, and only gave up fully when it became painfully apparent how pitiful he was at it. If he'd suddenly become extremely proficient at it… Well, he _had_ been getting his physical makeup changed by the World Tree, the progenitor of all chakra. It would make sense that he had a closer connection to natural chakra now.

"Alright," Tenzo started, jerking him from his thoughts. "We're going to attack tonight, while the majority of the camp is sleeping. Monkey, you'll be in charge of distractions."

"Like always," the man interjected cheerfully.

"Put a wide range genjutsu on the camp. Since most of the bandits are either non-ninja or genin-level, very few should be able to resist. Cat and I will take care of those that do. Mouse, you're in charge of subduing the leader?"

"Me?" his voice was a little higher pitched than usual. Thank Gods his teenage years were long over and he didn't have to worry about voice cracks anymore.

"The mission is to return the target to Waterfall. They want to interrogate and punish him. Your techniques are most suited to bloodless capture."

Izumo nodded. He also figured that the point of this whole mission was to give him a test run anyway. He could handle a chunin-level fight. He could've handled the fight even before his Anbu training. There was no reason for his heart to be beating too quickly, or for his hands to be sweating. No reason at all.

The first part of the plan went off without a hitch. With a sensor on the squad (Yugao. Izumo definitely didn't count himself yet) it was child's play to identify the sentries. From there, it was simple for Kage to put them in an illusion. Cat and the Captain tied them up. The rest of the goons were sleeping, which made them even more susceptible to genjutsu. The wider the illusion was spread, the less effective it would be, but sleeping opponents couldn't fight back.

Izumo made his way to the leader's tent only to leap out of the way as it exploded into a burst of shuriken and shrapnel. Shit, the man had probably felt the illusion. That meant he was better than they'd initially thought. Wordlessly, the scarred man came at him, sword raised. Izumo spat out a few water bullets, which Saito dodged nimbly. The Mouse-masked man had a hood covering his face. Tenzo had been worried that the missing-nin would flee immediately if he saw that he was being hunted by Konoha Anbu.

Saito was slowly but surely advancing towards him, axe in hand. The ex-chunin dodged around his numerous water bullets, but finally made a mistake. Frustrated at the slow progress, the other man raised his axe to chop at one that came close to him. Rather than cutting through it, the blade was caught by the force of the blow and jerked backwards until the technique stuck it against a tree. Izumo's increased mastery of water manipulation allowed him to combine the principles of his Syrup Trap technique with other water ninjutsu.

Saito growled, pulling at the axe futilely for a second before Izumo was on him, sword drawn. The missing nin was forced to dodge as Izumo swung down at his arms, and he left the axe behind. Now the Anbu had him on the defensive, slicing out at the target furiously. Saito was able to draw a couple of kunai to defend himself, but Izumo quickly enhanced his body with Yang chakra. The other man was definitely skilled with strengthening himself with chakra as well, but Izumo had the advantage of a weapon with much longer reach. Judging by the snarl on the man's ugly, scarred face, he knew it as well.

Each time their blades met—the sound of the metal-on-metal contact ringing through the clearing—Saito was forced to move back a step and disperse the force of Izumo's blow. Normally this wouldn't be a bad strategy, but as it was, the other man was just being maneuvered exactly where the Anbu wanted him. The missing-nin took another step back, and then one more, and finally the trap was sprung.

Izumo jumped backwards, creating distance between the two of them. He brought his hands together in a ram seal to focus his chakra. Saito raised his kunai and tried to retreat as well, but looked down at horror at his foot. It was stuck in the remains of one of the many water bullets that the Mouse-masked man had spat out earlier in the fight. The other dozen scattered puddles quickly converged on the other man's position. That was the other valuable thing Izumo had gained from his training: the ability to manipulate the water of his ninjutsu after he released them.

It was a matter of moments for Saito to be completely trussed up in the viscous liquid. He was struggling against it, but his hands were bound so that he couldn't form any hand signs, and the man wasn't good enough with chakra to manipulate it in their absence, presumably. Tenzo appeared quickly in front of their target, slapping a knock-out tag on his head, causing him to slump over lifelessly, supported only by Izumo's technique.

"Good job," Tenzo called over to him. "The rest of the camp has been neutralized as well. We'll leave them tied up and send a message to the local Lord so that he can have his men collect him in the morning. In the meantime, we'll take Saito to the border and arrange for the transfer."

Kage came over and slapped him on the back, companionably. "Nice, Mouse! That guy didn't stand a chance against you. Had him on the run the whole time," he complimented.

Izumo couldn't help but feel that things were a bit… anticlimactic. "That was it?"

"Were you expecting it to be more difficult?" drawled Yugao.

"Well, kind of," admitted the chunin. "Saito fell for every bait I gave him. Literally nothing went wrong."

"The tent exploded in your face," suggested Monkey.

"Alright, _that_ went wrong but that was barely a blip in things."

"We still need to remain vigilant in case Saito has any tricks up his sleeves, but I have every expectation he'll remain unconscious until we hand him off to the Waterfall ninja, at which point it's no longer our problem," said the Captain.

"Right," Izumo mumbled. Ren Saito had been listed as a C-ranked opponent. The Anbu had known intellectually that he'd progressed impressively, but it was another thing entirely to see it laid out to obviously. Izumo himself had been mainly a C-ranked ninja. On a good day maybe he could give a B-ranker a run for their money. However, he'd taken out Saito as if he were a fresh genin. It was safe to say that the Mouse-masked Anbu was now solidly in the B-ranked category. He'd gained an entire rank in a matter of weeks!

Izumo knew that he wouldn't continue progressing at that rate. His incredible growth had been a result of having all the right skills, built up over more than a decade of active service. He'd lacked just a few key pieces to put it all together, and once he finally did that, the results were substantial. He wouldn't be able to sustain the rank-a-week pace, but if he kept serving in Anbu, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that he might someday achieve an A-ranking. The thought of himself, one of the elites of the village… well it made him a little bit giddy. His teammates were polite enough to ignore the slightly manic giggle he couldn't quite suppress.

Jounin Izumo Kamizuki? It had a pretty good ring to it.

A/N: So we got a glimpse of Izumo's capabilities! He's by no means crazy awesome, but he's no slouch anymore either!

I'm conflicted about metric units. In previous chapters I used 'feet' to describe the size of large objects, but here I use 'kilometer' for distance, because that's what Kishi uses in canon to talk about Neji's visual range. It seems more natural to use metrics, but the vast majority of my viewers are from the US, and I'm not sure if they can follow that stuff very well (I'm American myself… for the next week until I move continents, that is). Any opinions?

Also there are ABSOLUTELY NO (zero) more surprise effects from Izumo's connection to the World Tree. Increased chakra capacity and connection to natural chakra just made sense, given the context, and the latter actually has an important impact in the plot later on. I didn't just decide to heap special abilities on him.

Also, according to Narutopedia, Izumo actually did play cards with the Barrier team. :P

Also #2: Kage is a canon character. There's virtually no information on him though, so everything about his skill/personality is made up by me. If you want to see what he looks like you can find him on Narutopedia under Kage (Anbu).


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

It hadn't taken long for Izumo to grow used to kneeling in front of the Hokage. As a chunin, he generally bowed to the older man. Therefore the position had been a bit weird at first, one knee on the floor, the foot of the other leg planted flat, with the knuckles of his right fist gently touching the ground. After nearly a month in the Organization, though, the pose (along with many other things) had become almost second nature.

"The mission was a success, Lord Hokage. The expedition sent by the Sound Village was neutralized, and the evidence planted," stated Tenzo.

Izumo did his best not to tense. It had taken a lot of self-control not to immediately blurt out the truth about Sound as soon as the Third had given them the mission. It would have been useless anyway, because the older man had informed them that Konoha had intelligence that Orochimaru was using the village in some way. Izumo barely had any details about Sound that the Hokage didn't already know. He had a tentative plan in place for how he could inform the village about the pending attack without compromising his own status as a time-traveler, though.

The chunin hadn't realized the first time around that the village had been watching Sound carefully. His briefing as part of his Anbu mission had given him a lot more information. The new village had sprung up in the last few years, quickly cementing itself as a force on par with a minor village like Waterfall or Grass. Rumor had it that Sound was under the control of an S-ranked ninja, which was how it kept its mesh of high-level missing ninja in check, and there weren't too many S-ranks unaccounted for.

Sound had slowly but surely been making forays into the Land of Fire, convincing Lords whose lands bordered the Land of Rice to contract them instead of paying more and travelling further to hire Leaf ninja. Konoha wasn't their only enemy though; the village had also been stretching eastwards into the Land of Hotsprings. Ever since Hotspring's ninja village had disbanded, Cloud had taken over a lot of the land's contracts. The Anbu had killed the Sound team and planted kunai and other weapons of Lightning-make in the area to cover their tracks.

"Hm, good." The elder puffed thoughtfully on his pipe. "Were there any complications?"

The feline masked man nodded. "The leader seemed to have some sort of seal that empowered him beyond that of a normal jounin. Mouse and Monkey successfully subdued his teammates with genjutsu, and the leader didn't seem inclined to free them. Cat and I were able to take him down without getting injured more than she could heal."

"I see," the Hokage murmured. "Yes, he never did care much about teamwork." No one needed to ask who Sarutobi meant by 'he'.

The battle had been tense. Once the jounin had unleashed his cursed seal, it had taken all of his and Kage's efforts to keep the foul chakra from jerking the rest of the team out of their illusions. Izumo had wanted to help Yugao and Tenzo, but the Captain had signaled for him to stay put. He figured that a Syrup Trap would have made their fight easier, but guessed that the other man hadn't wanted the Sound ninja's attention on him.

Unlike his first mission, the four others that he'd been on had involved less action on Izumo's part. Tenzo had him acting more as a support type using genjutsu and his limited sensing abilities (he still hadn't gotten the hang of filtering out all of the extraneous information when he tried to use that talent). Roughly half the time he would actually enter combat, but never against the leader like he had with Saito. Izumo understood that even though he felt a lot more comfortable in his role as Anbu, he was still the rookie on the squad, and the Captain didn't want to overextend him.

"Well," said the Third, breaking the silence. "You've done well. Hopefully that will make Sound more hesitant to send troops into our territory. I doubt that we'll have to deal with them again before the Exams. They've confirmed that a genin team will attend. We can try to use the opportunity to find out more about their intentions." The Hokage was likely correct. There were only seven weeks until the exams began; it was doubtful that Orochimaru would waste another team like that with his planned Invasion on the horizon.

"The four of you have been out of the village almost nonstop since Mouse joined," the man continued, smiling at Izumo. "Take a few days off before you report back in for another mission."

"Sir," they agreed, straightening up and disappearing quickly from the office, recognizing the dismissal for what it was. As they exited, Kage nudged Izumo with his elbow.

"So," he began slyly. "Do you want to go grab a drink, celebrate getting home safely?"

"No way," groaned Izumo. "Last time you got me dancing on a table. I need at _least_ a month before I can repeat that nightmare."

He could feel Kage's pout; he didn't need to see it at this point. Kage tended to be a bit reserved around strangers, but the teen could party like no one's business. He made Izumo feel like an old man, even though technically speaking he was only twenty-four. "I'm going home to get some rest. You can try me again tomorrow night."

Izumo threw himself into a Body Flicker before the other Anbu could protest. At least by now he was more proficient with Yang techniques than the illusion specialist. It made it much easier to get away from him during inconvenient moments. Like this one.

It didn't take him long to get back to his apartment. In the early evening there wasn't much traffic along the rooftops, although he'd had to stop and stash his uniform before going home. That would've been a surefire way to give away his identity. When the brunet got to the wall of his building, he noticed that his window was opened, and smiled. Kakashi must be in. Izumo wasn't sure how the man always knew when he was coming back from a mission, but it always brightened his day nonetheless.

As he landed on his windowsill, however, he heard the easily identifiable sound of his smoke alarm beeping, before it cut off with an ominous crackling sound. Worried, Izumo hurried to the kitchen, where he saw the jounin sheepishly backing away from the ironically smoking smoke detector. Judging by the state of it, Kakashi had shut it off with a lightning technique.

"Ah, I may have panicked a tiny bit when it wouldn't stop beeping. I'll- um, I'll replace it," assured the white-haired man.

"Okay," Izumo said slowly. "But why did it go off in the first place?"

"I… may have burned something?" Kakashi stepped to the side and revealed Izumo's stove. A pan was simmering merrily on the burner, but it appeared that a few rogue vegetables had fallen into the flames and become incinerated. "It turns out that flipping the stir fry in the air is a lot more difficult than you make it seem," the jounin chuckled, rubbing his head sheepishly.

Izumo made his way over to the pan and glanced inside. Most of the food seemed fine though. "You were cooking me food?" he asked, brow furrowed.

"Well, it just seemed like a nice change of pace, is all."

The chunin _almost_ missed the way Kakashi's eye flickered to the side for a brief instant. "You're hiding something," accused Izumo.

"Ma, Anbu has made you much more observant," deflected the other man.

"Uh huh," he agreed, staring at the other man with his best 'unimpressed' look.

"Don't look so anxious, Izumo. It's nothing bad- well, it's nothing too dangerous… Um, I have a favor to ask," Kakashi finished lamely. "But why don't we eat the food first while it's still warm!" the man piped in cheerfully.

Warily, the brunet sat as the table while the other man bustled around the kitchen, scooping food out of the pan and onto two plates. Kakashi also grabbed two glasses, throwing some ice in them and filling them up in the sink. He felt warmed briefly at the fact that the jounin was familiar enough with his kitchen to know where everything was. (Although the man could've cooked in his _own_ kitchen and brought it over. On second thought, Izumo didn't want to think of the cleanliness—or lack thereof—in the white-haired man's apartment.)

The two of them ate in silence for a moment. "It's good," Izumo complimented him, even as he hid a wince at the amount of soy sauce that Kakashi had put in the dish. He didn't want to discourage the other man from cooking. If nothing else it would save the jounin some money on takeout. Normally, he wouldn't be able to hide his slight discomfort from the white-haired man, but Kakashi seemed distracted.

"So," Kakashi began, and then fell quiet.

"Yes," prompted Izumo, a bit nervous.

"Ah, you see…" The man folded his hands delicately on the table in front of him. "I was hoping that you could watch over my team tomorrow."

The brunet furrowed his brow. "Team Ro doesn't have a mission tomorrow. The Hokage gave us a few days off."

There was a pause. "I meant my genin team, actually."

"Your genin team? Why do you need me to watch your genin team?"

"I was asked to consult on an interrogation," Kakashi said softly. "Inoichi is busy and it requires… high security clearance, to say the least. Ibiki felt that the Sharingan could be helpful."

"Okay," Izumo began hesitantly. "Have you considered just giving them a day off?"

Kakashi shook his head. "You know the chunin exams coming up soon? I want to enter them, but I want to get them out on a C-ranked mission first. They aren't ready to go outside the village yet, though, so I don't want them to miss training days when time is so short."

"You want to enter your team into the exams?" he said, a little surprised despite the fact that he knew it would happen anyway.

"I have no intention of them actually passing," Kakashi said dismissively. "But during peace time it's hard to scare them into taking things seriously without putting them in real danger. I was hoping that the chunin exams would show them the realities of the ninja world. Ideally I would wait one more cycle at least, but with Naruto and Sasuke… well, it wouldn't be safe to enroll them in a foreign exam for years, until they could look after themselves."

Izumo nodded. "That makes sense I suppose… but why _me_? Don't you have jounin friends more qualified to handle this?"

"Even if you were a normal chunin, you'd be perfectly qualified to watch over three genin for a day," Kakashi stated, amused. "But you're uniquely suited to the task."

"How so?"

"The problem really is Naruto. He's not a bad kid but to be quite frank, he's a menace to people he doesn't respect. I've been able to curb his little pranking habit by distracting him with 'real' ninja work, but he has a history of ignoring and disrespecting superiors. You and his Academy sensei are the only people I could trust to keep him in line."

Izumo frowned in contemplation. Kakashi was probably right. Naruto would probably behave for him just due to the fact that he was important to the boy. "What about the other two?"

The jounin smiled. Izumo was distracted a bit by how the expression transformed the man's face (just like he was every time). It was a reminder that he was one of the few people privileged enough to see it. "Oh, they're easy. Sakura is an obedient girl. She'll do what you say just because you're an authority figure. Sometimes she can be a bit stubborn if she thinks Sasuke wants her to be, but get him in line and there's no problem. And all you have to do to get the Uchiha to listen to you is prove that you're stronger than him."

"Oh, is that all?" Izumo drawled sarcastically. Sasuke became one of the most powerful people in the world. It wasn't hard to image that even as a child the Uchiha would be out of his league.

Kakashi gave him a strange look. "You know, you have really terrible self-esteem. Sasuke is certainly a talented child, but he's a twelve year old genin, and you're an Anbu member. You outclass him so much that it's silly for you to assume you couldn't beat him."

"Oh, right," he mumbled, blushing. Izumo averted his gaze.

Kakashi reached out and placed a hand on top of his. "I know it took you a while to really come into your own as a shinobi, but you don't deserve to be so hard on yourself. There's no one else that I would rather trust with my genin. You're really good with children," the man said brightly.

"You have literally seen me interact with one child," Izumo joked weakly.

"So according to my data you're great with one-hundred percent of the children I've seen you with. Please say yes. It would be good for the kids to be exposed to another mentor," Kakashi begged, eye wide. Maybe he learned puppy-dog eyes from his summons.

Izumo sighed. "Alright, sure, but if it goes wrong let this be my official warning that I told you so."

The jounin brightened with a grin. "Great! As long as they all have the same number of limbs as they started with, I'll be happy."

With Izumo in charge of the genin that would become three of the most powerful ninja in the entire world, he wasn't even sure he could guarantee that much. If he was going to have any hope of making it out without major incident, he'd have to have a plan…

Izumo watched from his spot in the tree line as team seven slowly gathered in their assigned training ground. He was suppressing his chakra, which might have been overkill in hindsight. It was startling, seeing the three ninja as, well… children. Of course, the brunet had already interacted with Naruto quite a few times, so he shouldn't be surprised to see the boy looking so young, but juxtaposed next to the other two genin it was startling.

Out of the three children, it was hardest to see Sakura, actually. Izumo and Kotetsu had been something like the personal assistants to the Fifth Hokage. He was never sure why the woman chose them over every other more qualified ninja in the village. She'd said once that he was the most meticulous shinobi she had, and that Kotetsu just came as a package deal. Izumo had personally thought it had more to do with the fact that she couldn't spare a more combat-capable ninja to do the job. Either way, his position had him working closely with Sakura on more than one occasion, due to her role as the Hokage's apprentice.

Izumo had watched the girl grow from a genin into a young woman who was capable of taking on S-ranked missing nin. Even as a child, she'd always had a certain spark to her, a fire that had attracted Tsunade's attention in the first place. It was jarring to see her hiding behind her long hair, glancing at Sasuke coyly. Speaking of the boy… The last time Izumo had seen the Uchiha, he had been surrounded by an enormous chakra construct (Susanoo, he thought) and fighting Obito (Madara?) with the power of his Mangekyou eyes. He had to admit that he'd expected the genin to seem like that fierce warrior from the future, but… Izumo couldn't help but think that Sasuke looked more like a surly child than anything else. He knew better than to underestimate a ninja due to their age but it was hard to see a twelve-year-old boy and think of him as a deadly killer.

The chunin felt a bit more grounded. The three genin were just that- genin. They might be destined to become incredible, but right now they were just children. He could handle this. Subtly, Izumo maneuvered himself through the trees and dropped down to the path leading into the training grounds. None of the kids appeared to notice. He allowed his steps to make noise as he approached the three of them.

"Woah, Izumo?!" Naruto stood up quickly and launched himself at Izumo's midsection. The brunet chuckled and wrapped an arm around the boy's shoulders, returning the hug. The Uzumaki was an affectionate child. "It's been _forever_ since I've seen you!" It had been eight days. "Are you here to get ramen with me?"

The chunin laughed. Naruto had a very one-track mind. "Naruto, aren't you supposed to be training? You don't have time to get ramen."

Pulling away, the blonde scoffed. "We have plenty of time. Sensei is always an hour late, at least."

Izumo raised an eyebrow. "Really?" And the man said that he wanted the genin not to miss any training. Maybe he had his reasons though.

"Yeah, so we can totally sneak off for a bit to go get some food first!"

"You shouldn't stuff yourself right before training anyway," Izumo scolded lightly, before turning to the other pre-teens. They didn't look impressed. Sakura appeared politely curious, at least. "Besides, Kakashi isn't going to be training you today, anyway."

"Huh? Why not?" asked the blonde.

"He has other engagements today, so he can't be here," explained the older man.

"Did he send you here to let us know that we won't be meeting today?" Sakura piped in, sounding a bit shy.

Izumo shook his head. "Actually, he sent me here to take over your training today in his stead." He moved over to where the other two kids were seated, before lowering himself to his knees a short distance away from them. "My name is Izumo Kamizuki. As I'm sure you can tell, I've already met Naruto, but if you two could introduce yourselves, that'd be great."

There was a pause before the boy said "Sasuke Uchiha," simply. Sakura glanced at the boy and blushed, before murmuring: "Um, my name is Sakura Haruno."

The chunin smiled. "It's a pleasure to meet you Sasuke, Sakura. Naruto come sit down." The blonde did as instructed, obediently trotting to his side and plopping down on the ground, cross-legged. "You all can call me Izumo, no need for 'sensei'. I'm a chunin and a friend of Kakashi's which is why he asked me to come here today. However, he didn't tell me much about what you've been working on with him. Can you fill me in?" The jounin had given him a pretty thorough briefing, actually, but he wanted to quiz them.

"Ah, Sensei just has us run around and do drills and stuff. He doesn't even teach us anything cool," whined Naruto.

Sensing that the boy was quickly going to transition into asking _him_ to teach them something 'cool', Izumo interjected. "Thank you, Naruto. Sakura, can you give me a bit more details?"

The girl started, looking surprised to be addressed directly. "Well… Kakashi-sensei has had us working on standard Konoha drills and formations. Usually after we do conditioning exercises he gives us some sort of practice where we have to fight him off or something."

Izumo nodded. The jounin had informed him of that much. Although the genin probably hadn't realized it, the drills they were doing were simulations of standard missions: information gathering, retrieval, assault, protection, etc. They were also designed to foster teamwork amongst the genin.

"Alright," Izumo said, getting up slowly and stretching. "Why don't we do some quick exercises to see where we're at? Sasuke…"

The dark-haired boy in question looked up at him placidly.

"I understand that you graduated at the top of your class, correct?"

Sasuke nodded, but there was the tiniest hint of a smirk on his face. It was understandable for him to be proud of his achievements.

"Good," the chunin beamed. "We'll start with you, then. I need to establish your strengths and weaknesses, so I'm going to ask you all to spar with me one-on-one first."

Sasuke nodded and stood up as well, appearing a bit eager to test his abilities against Izumo. The chunin walked back further into the training grounds to keep their spar away from the other pre-teens. Izumo tossed a clock over to Naruto, who fumbled with it for a moment, surprised, but eventually got a good hold on it.

"This is a five-minute drill. Your mission is to subdue the enemy—that's me—in five minutes or less. If you take longer than that, my comrades will come and back me up, and you'll have to retreat and fail your assignment. For the sake of this exercise, feel free to use any force necessary. I want to see what you're capable of."

Sasuke nodded again, eyes sharpening. "Hn," he grunted affirmatively.

Just as he'd suspected, the boy grew more serious as he was given better guidelines for the drill. Izumo figured that given the Uchiha's disposition, he needed to feel like he was doing something important, rather than just playing around.

"Naruto, call out when you've started the timer."

"Alright… ready, get set, go!" the blonde cried cheerfully.

In an instant, Sasuke was upon him, throwing all his weight into a flying kick. Normally, Izumo would just dodge it, but he wanted to test the genin's strength. Instead, he crossed his arms in front of himself, blocking the blow. The chunin was impressed to note that he had to reinforce his limbs with chakra to keep himself from getting hurt. The Uchiha immediately twisted himself in the air lithely, trying to strike Izumo with a roundhouse kick to the head with his other foot.

The chunin pushed the boy away, putting space between him and drew two kunai, one in each hand. Sasuke narrowed his eyes before doing the same. The boy sprang forward again, stabbing towards him viciously. Izumo parried his arm to the left, before stepping forward diagonally and thrusting downward with his own knife. The genin managed to pivot enough to dodge the blow (though just by a hair) and strike at him with his off hand.

Izumo traded blows with him for a while, allowing himself to be pushed backwards. The genin had a very aggressive fighting style, and he had no doubt that it worked well for him in the Academy. Against other children his age, Sasuke probably overwhelmed his opponents with his ferocious attacks. However, it was a detriment against someone like Izumo, who was bigger and stronger then him. Having seen enough, he began pressing back against the Uchiha. When the younger ninja kicked out towards him, Izumo jabbed the ring end of his kunai roughly into the boy's shin and shoved him away.

Instead of waiting for Sasuke to come at him, as he'd been doing for the whole spar, the chunin pressed his advantage, throwing his kunai towards the boy, who parried them and returned the favor. Izumo dodged out of the way of the projectiles and moved forward back into close range. The Uchiha unleashed an impressive barrage of taijutsu attacks again, but Izumo bolstered himself with Yang chakra and slapped the blows away like they were nothing. It was overkill, but that was the intention. Quickly seeing that hand to hand wouldn't work for him, the genin retreated, making some space between them.

"One minute left, Sasuke," Izumo said neutrally.

The pre-teen's jaw clenched, and he attacked the chunin with a barrage of shuriken and kunai, before immediately making a series of hand signs. Curious, Izumo knocked the weapons away from himself instead of dodging, allowing the kid to finish his technique. His eyes widened as the boy blew a massive fireball towards him. That wasn't the kind of attack you would see a freshly graduated genin making. Sasuke was impressive even at twelve years old.

Still, it was exactly the wrong thing to do, although the Uchiha didn't know it. Izumo made a ram sign and expelled an equal amount of water from his mouth. His technique easily overpowered the genin's, extinguishing the flames and continuing onwards. The surprised boy couldn't dodge out of the way in time (that was the problem with the Great Fireball; it obscured your line of sight). He was quickly caught in the adhesive properties of Izumo's technique.

The chunin approached Sasuke slowly, allowing him a chance to escape the trap. The genin struggled fruitlessly for a few moments before glaring. "Hm, looks like you failed this one," Izumo said dispassionately before dispelling the ninjutsu and allowing the water to fall harmlessly to the ground. He smiled guilelessly at the boy. "That was a pretty good effort though!" he encouraged, guessing (correctly, it appeared) that the platitude would just irritate the Uchiha further.

"Haha! Wow you bastard, Izumo totally kicked your butt!" chortled Naruto, who proceeded to make a rude face at his teammate.

"I don't suppose you think you could do better, Naruto?" taunted Izumo with a smile. The boy puffed up like a peacock.

"You're pretty awesome, Izumo, but I'm going to be the Hokage someday! There's no way I'll lose to you!" bragged the blonde. Thankfully he was polite enough (or maybe just forgetful enough) not to mention that he'd already defeated an opponent that Izumo was helpless against.

Naruto leapt to his feet and sprinted across the clearing. Sasuke retook his seat with a scowl. So far things were proceeding exactly as planned. The blonde settled in across from him, ready to fight. "Go ahead and count us off please, Sakura," Izumo called over.

"Um, okay. Ready? Begin!"

Unlike his teammate, Naruto didn't immediately attack him. Instead, he brought his fingers together and shouted. "Shadow Clone!" Twenty copies of the boy poofed into existence in front of Izumo. They all started shouting battle cries and ran towards him. However, there was no coordination to their movements, no reason for Izumo to seriously fear being overwhelmed.

Two clones reached him first, coming towards him from his right and left. The brunet just stepped backwards, grabbing each of their heads and smacking their foreheads together. The clones destabilized and dispelled. Another ran towards him, but Izumo grabbed its outstretched arm and spun around in a tight circle, using its momentum against it and throwing the blonde copy into two more Narutos, causing all three to disappear in a puff of smoke. While he was fighting the Uzumaki, none of the other clones tried to flank him or control his zone of movement with projectiles or anything. Izumo suppressed a sigh. Kakashi had told him that Naruto tended to rely too much on brute force and too little on actual strategy.

The rest of the blonde horde began circling him warily, not eager to repeat the failed tactics. At least Naruto had learned something. Once Izumo was surrounded, the genin and his clones rushed forward, yelling. "We'll get you this time!" one of them cried. The chunin used the Body Flicker to escape the circle, landing up high in a tree.

"What? Where'd he go?!"

"Alright, don't hit each other! We don't want a repeat of what happened with Kakashi-sensei." …Well that sounded like an interesting story.

Wordlessly, Izumo cast a genjutsu on Naruto, before jumping down into the clearing. None of the orange-clad figures so much as blinked. Good, his illusion was holding then. The brunet walked up to one of the clones and punched it, causing it to dispel.

"Holy crap, did you guys see that? What happened?" a Naruto exclaimed.

Izumo dispelled another clone.

"He must be over there somewhere! Quick, go get him!"

The brunet easily stepped out of the way of the horde of genin, popping a few more copies while he was at it. Izumo easily moved through the crowd, until there were only three blondes left.

"Argh! I don't know how you're doing this Izumo, but you can't beat me! I'll just make more Shadow clones." The genin that spoke moved to form the distinctive cross-seal again, but Izumo snagged one of his hands and forced it behind his back, putting a kunai to Naruto's throat. The chunin allowed his illusion to fade.

"Hm, looks like you failed too, Naruto."

The boy squirmed in his grip. "Hey let me go! No fair, you cheated!"

Izumo released Naruto, who pouted up at him sulkily. "There is no such thing as cheating for ninja, Naruto. Anything that you can do to win is fair game. Besides, genjutsu is one of the three main ninja arts. You should always expect your opponent to be proficient in it."

"Yeah, yeah. I totally would've won if you hadn't used that illusion though!" protested the blonde.

"Maybe," Izumo allowed with a smile. "But I _did_ use a genjutsu, and you didn't catch it. Maybe next time." He turned his attention to the sidelines. "Sakura, it's your turn." The girl got up nervously and took her place in the 'arena'. She would require a bit of a different touch, he thought. The boys needed to be brought down a peg, but she looked like she had already assumed the loss.

"You can do it Sakura!" called Naruto. "You know all his moves now. Ready, set, go!"

This time, Izumo made obvious hand signs and cast the same genjutsu on her that he did on Naruto. He began to slowly flank the pink-haired girl, moving to incapacitate her. Before he could though, Sakura looked around for a moment before bringing her hands together into a ram seal.

"Release!" she called.

Izumo fought the urge to smile (it wouldn't do to reveal that he wanted her to succeed) and flipped a few shuriken her way. The girl avoided them before returning a volley of her own. The chunin closed in quickly and exchanged a few blows with her, but Sakura knew that she was outclassed. As he punched her, there was a puff of smoke and a log took her place. Instinctively, he ducked down, avoiding the kunai that were aimed for his torso. Izumo had to fight harder against his grin. She'd used the moment she'd gained wisely.

Four versions of the pink haired genin stood behind him. Unlike Naruto, her clones were of the regular variety and so it was easy to tell them apart. Anyone with sensory abilities could tell the difference. The biggest give away was in the shadows, though. Regular clones didn't cast any shadows (unless the user was very skilled with the technique). It was one of the reasons that the Shadow Clone had gotten its name (because they _did_ make shadows).

Nevertheless, he allowed her to continue her attack, aware of where the real threat was. Izumo acted as if he couldn't tell the clones apart, avoiding each of their blows carefully. In truth, it was a very clever ruse. Sakura likely knew that he was aware of the Academy graduation standards requiring prospective genin to produce three clones. It would be logical to assume that she could only make three, and that the fourth was her. In actuality though, all four of the figures were illusions. The real Sakura had used the Transformation technique and was approaching him in the form of a rabbit.

The clones were herding him towards the real girl; however, as she dispelled her Transformation and attacked him, Izumo ignored the blow from the fake Sakura and spun around, catching her arm easily. He held a knife out towards her. "Do you yield?" he asked pleasantly.

"Um, yes sir," she agreed sheepishly. Izumo released her.

"That was fantastic work!" he praised effusively. "Dispelling my genjutsu at the beginning was impressive, and you displayed great strategy in your use of the basic three techniques. You almost tricked me," Izumo lied adroitly.

"Oh! Thank you, sir. I couldn't put up as good of a fight as Naruto or Sasuke though…"

"Hm, I'm not so sure about that," Izumo refuted with a wink. Sakura blushed. After they returned to the spot where the other two genin sat, joining them. Once they were settled in, the brunet spoke.

"Alright, let's start with you, Sasuke. What did you do wrong?"

The boy frowned. "I've never had anyone overpower my ninjutsu like that. Even Kakashi-sensei avoided it. I shouldn't have assumed that you wouldn't be able to counter it," he admitted.

Izumo nodded. "You also didn't have any reason to believe that I could perform water techniques fast enough to fight off your Great Fireball. Still, you're right that you should be prepared for opponents to beat it. Also, you need to be more cautious with your taijutsu."

"How so?" Sasuke asked. He didn't sound angry, but rather pensive. It seemed like Kakashi had been right (unsurprisingly). Once Izumo proved his strength the Uchiha was open to suggestions for improvement.

"You're a very aggressive fighter, which isn't a problem in itself. Against opponents that are similar to you in size, you can overwhelm them quickly. However, if someone is able to hold off your initial assault, the style leaves a lot of openings in your defense. You don't necessarily have to abandon your combat tendencies, but you should be aware of its weaknesses. When you're fighting someone who's bigger than you and stronger than you physically, all you're doing is asking for retaliation. You're fast, very much so, and you can use speed and agility to your advantage in those cases."

The pre-teen looked a bit disappointed but thoughtful. Izumo smirked internally; now time to bait the hook. "Of course, if you're not fighting alone it's another story entirely. If your enemy is distracted by something else, then your aggressive fighting style may take them off guard, and a teammate can cover up any openings you leave. In fact, it may make your taijutsu even more effective."

Sasuke grunted in acknowledgement, but didn't look pleased about it. Izumo smiled and turned to Naruto. "Your turn, buddy. Anything you could've done differently?"

"Yeah!" the blonde exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at him. "If you hadn't used that cheap genjutsu on me, I would've been fine!"

Izumo couldn't resist chuckling. "You're not going to be able to control what techniques your enemies use; you can only control how you react to them. If you'd been able to dismiss the illusion like Sakura had, you might've stood a chance."

Naruto grumbled wordlessly but nodded, reluctant.

"What about before the illusion?" Izumo prompted.

The boy narrowed his eyes. "I guess you were throwing my clones around then, too."

"And why was that?"

"Because… they ran at you too fast?" Naruto tried.

Izumo grinned encouragingly. "That's partially right. Your clones weren't attacking as one unit, but rather as a mesh of disorganized individuals. If they'd worked together, I would have had a lot harder time fighting you off."

"Alright!" cheered the blonde. "I'll totally get my clones to work with me and then I'll kick your butt!"

The taller man rubbed at the back of his head. "Good. Sakura? How about you?"

The genin looked downwards shyly. "I… I wasn't strong enough to fight you head on. As soon as you saw through my tricks, you had me in a position that I couldn't defend."

"But why did I know that your clones weren't real?"

Sakura furrowed her brow for a moment. "Could you sense them?" she asked tentatively.

"It's nothing so simple." Well, it was, but she didn't need to know that. "Keep in mind that clones at their core are illusions. They don't leave footprints, rustle the leaves as they move, or make shadows."

The pink-haired pre-teen's eyes widened in realization. "Oh."

"Yeah," agreed the chunin amiably. "But there's a reason that the clone technique is a ninjutsu rather than a genjutsu. True masters of it can create tiny disturbances in the world around the clone, making it more convincing." Of course, the level of yin-yang manipulation necessary for that was far beyond the a genin, but still…

"You were right with your initial assessment though. You don't have the physical strength necessary to fight an older ninja directly." Saying that to Sakura Haruno felt blasphemous, almost, but technically it was true in this time period. "But you had a good strategy for avoiding outright confrontation," Izumo complimented. He paused for a moment.

"But I admit that this wasn't entirely just to get a feeling for your strengths and weaknesses. Do any of you know why I did this exercise?"

Sakura raised her hand tentatively. Izumo bit the inside of his lip to keep from laughing. "Yes, Sakura?"

"Well, before you decided to spar with us, we were telling you about the teamwork exercises Kakashi-sense had us doing."

Sasuke's eyes widened. "And just now you told us about how we can work together as a team."

Izumo didn't try to hide his smile this time. "Care to elaborate on that?"

The dark haired boy crossed his arms. "You made a point of using genjutsu against Sakura before anything else, to show us that she can dispel them. She could keep Naruto from getting caught in your illusions. Then you told me that if I had a distraction, my taijutsu would be more effective. Naruto's clones are a good way of providing cover, as long as he can have them coordinate well enough with each other and me. And my hand to hand skills are good enough to protect Sakura so that she can attack stealthily without having to worry about being overpowered."

Izumo had known that Sasuke was a genius, but he certainly hadn't had any trouble putting all the pieces together. He would've made a good captain someday, if it weren't for Orochimaru. "Right in one," praised the chunin. "Now, can any of you guess what I'm going to ask you to do next?"

"You want to have all three of us try to fight you!" exclaimed Naruto.

"Bingo!" Izumo grinned. "I'll give you ten minutes to plan it all out, and then we'll try again, okay?"

The three kids all agreed, and the chunin retreated so that he wouldn't overhear their plan. He wanted to be surprised, after all. Eventually, they approached him, and said that they were ready. "Alright," Izumo agreed. "The same rules apply. You've got five minutes to subdue me or else you fail. I'll start the clock this time. Ready…? Begin!"

Izumo ran towards the trio, and Sasuke leapt forward to meet him. They exchanged blows for a moment before the chunin's eyes narrowed. He snaked an arm forward and delivered a sharp blow to the genin's sternum. As he suspected, 'Sasuke' disappeared in a puff of smoke. The genin had actually been one of Naruto's clones in disguise. The transformation on 'Sakura' was released as well, revealing another orange-clad genin.

"Good start!" praised the brunet. In response, dozens of Naruto clones spilled out from the trees. Time to see if they'd learned anything.

Forming a chain of hand signs, Izumo cast a genjutsu on the crowd. They stopped in their tracks, looking dazed for a second before they all disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Sakura must have broken Naruto out of the illusion, and he dispelled the horde of shadow clones. Out of the smoke, Sasuke appeared suddenly, engaging him in taijutsu. This time, Izumo didn't humor the Uchiha, and once the boy's barrage of attacks revealed an opening, he struck. The chunin quickly forced the genin backwards, and almost scored a sure-to-be painful hit before he was forced to dodge three Narutos that hurled themselves towards him. It appeared that they were going to collide, but one orange-genin passed straight through the others, heading straight for Izumo. The chunin widened his eyes when he realized that the other two were Sakura's clones disguised as the blonde. Clever.

Izumo allowed the one actual shadow clone to get a hit on him as a reward for the excellent strategy before he dispelled it. By that time, however, Sasuke had regained his bearings and resumed his attack. As if he were taken aback by the ferociousness of the attacks, Izumo backed up, letting Sasuke lead him where he was supposed to go. The chunin felt Sakura appear behind him, releasing her transformation technique, but acted like he was too distracted by Sasuke to notice. The chunin felt her kunai settle against his neck and stilled instinctively.

There was a pause while all four ninja were silent. Sakura's grip was a tad unsure, and Izumo could probably break it if he tried, but that wasn't the point. Instead he smiled. "I surrender," the brunet stated clearly. "Mission complete… and you still had forty seconds left."

"Woohoo! We did it!" cheered Naruto. Sakura removed the blade from his neck. Even Sasuke looked pleased with himself.

"Great job, you three!" complimented Izumo. "You really learned a lot from what I told you, and you were able to come together and defeat an enemy that you couldn't alone. _That's_ our village's real strength. Where others emphasize the power of the individual, we look at the power of the team. None of you could beat me by yourselves, but when you worked together, you did it on your first try. Individual abilities are vital, but together you can be greater than the sum of your parts. It's important to remember that if you work as a team, you can beat opponents that you couldn't by yourselves."

All three of the pre-teens looked pleased with themselves, bright grins on their faces (or a smirk, in Sasuke's case). Izumo decided to press his advantage while it lasted. "But what you did is just one way that you could combine your skills to overcome a challenge. Can you think of any more combinations of your techniques that could work?"

"Oh yeah!" cried Naruto. "I bet we can come up with a hundred. Just you wait, Izumo, pretty soon team seven will be the best in the whole village!"

Izumo grinned. Naruto didn't realize how right he was. Hopefully this time, though, they could progress as a team and not just as individual ninja. Alone, they'd been capable of standing up to the strongest force in existence. Together… well maybe they could even save the world.

A/N: So I leave tomorrow for my new home across the Atlantic Ocean. The chances of me being able to get another weekly update done are slim, to say the least. It might happen but I'm betting it'll take 2 weeks at least this time.


	7. Chapter 6

A/N: Wow! So it's been nearly four weeks. Sorry about that. In that time I've moved across the Atlantic Ocean and started a Master's program. So, unfortunately my goal now will be to stick to a monthly update schedule. I'll definitely post chapters sooner if they end up being written sooner, but I just don't have the time to write 6k words a week on top of being in class every day. Hopefully you like the chapter!

Chapter 6:

"Alright, Mouse, how far away is the target?"

Izumo stilled his body, two fingers pressed firmly to the trunk of the tree on which he stood. After taking a deep breath, he brushed his chakra against the natural energies of the living things around him. As always, the chunin had to be careful not to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information that rushed through his brain. For him, sensing wasn't difficult; it was only filtering through all of the living beings in the area and finding the one he wanted that was the challenge.

After a month's practice, however, it only took him a few moments to find the chakra that he was looking for. There was a huge distinction between human energy and animals', especial humans who were trained in the use of chakra. Izumo could also feel the relative size of the person's reserves. It was almost like each ninja had a sort of 'gravity' to their chakra, and the larger the reserves the larger the impact it made on the natural field surrounding them. Given the almost earthy tinge to the chakra, it was almost certainly their mark.

Distance was a little bit more difficult to determine, however. There wasn't exactly a scale to the sense of awareness around him. Figuring out how far away his targets were came with experience and a lot of trial and error, until he'd gotten a better idea of the lengths between himself and the other objects in his perception. Izumo blinked and allowed his concentration to fade.

"About a kilometer and a half," the brunet said, trying to sound confident.

Yugao snorted. "I'd say a kilometer and a quarter, but it wasn't a bad try."

Tenzo nodded, cutting off their banter. "Good. It's only three more kilometers to the boarder then."

Izumo made an affirmative noise. Their target—Akatsuchi of the Hidden Rock village—was on his way to Grass through the Land of Fire. The foreign jounin was travelling through their territory legally, but considering he was one of the strongest ninja in Rock (and thus one of the strongest ninja in the world) Team Ro had been dispatched to ensure that he didn't deviate from his travel plans at all. It was fairly standard for Anbu to perform missions like these, on the off case that an A-level threat needed to be taken care of. That being said, it wasn't every day that such a high level foreign jounin was travelling through the Land of Fire, at least not legally.

The four Anbu stalked their target dutifully through the remaining countryside. After Akatsuchi made his way into Grass, they camped out for half a day, just to make sure that he wouldn't circle back into the Fire Country.

"No sign of the target anywhere in within one kilometer of the border," Izumo confirmed eventually.

The four of them heaved a collective sigh of relief, even though it was metaphorical in the Captain's case. Tenzo was far too impassive to make such a dramatic gesture. "Alright squad. Time for us to head back home."

Izumo was fairly used to Kakashi showing up in his apartment by now. The jounin was a fairly frequent dinner guest by this point. The fact that he was expecting the man to show up, combined with his growing sensory abilities allowed him to sense the white-haired man from a block away. It was something that the chunin was proud of. He felt like he was pretty accomplished as a shinobi if he could keep track of the infamous Copy Nin.

All of that pride was dismantled in about a second when he was pulled into an alleyway, barely able to suppress his surprised shriek. Izumo nearly struck out at his assailant, but he quickly recognized that the figure in front of him was none other than the masked man himself. Suddenly, the brunet flushed with embarrassment. How arrogant was he to assume that he was skilled enough to get past Kakashi's defenses? In hindsight, it was obvious that the ex-Anbu Captain had just grown comfortable enough with him to let his guard down.

"Kakashi? Why'd you…" Izumo cut himself off at the uncharacteristically serious look on Kakashi's face.

"Izumo," the man breathed softly, leaning in towards him. The jounin hooked a finger under his mask and pulled it downwards. His face was sterner than usual, although his lips were just barely parted.

"What is it? Is something wrong?"

The other man leaned a hair closer, staring deeply into the chunin's eyes. It was like Kakashi was trying to gaze into his soul, like there was a deep mystery that even the genius couldn't solve without him. Suddenly, Izumo felt his breath hitch. Kakashi had never given him any indication that he felt anything other than friendship towards him, and the chunin had never really considered the white-haired man in that way. The jounin seemed so far out of his league that Izumo had never even considered it. But now, with the way the man was looking at him…

"My genin…"

Izumo could almost feel the man's breath on his face- Wait, what? "Your genin?" he asked, dumbfounded, before internally scolding himself and sobering. "Is something wrong with the kids? Did they get hurt?" Shit. Had he managed to change the timeline to the point where Team 7 was put in danger? His pulse had already picked up, but now his heart was beating rapidly in his chest. Did he have time to try to sense for them?

"Izumo… _they listened to me_ _!_ "

"Huh?" the chunin asked stupidly.

"When I went to team training yesterday, Naruto asked me to come up with more squad drills that they could practice," Kakashi insisted, sounding honestly distressed.

"What?" Izumo repeated. His panic was fading into an odd sort of bafflement. Was Kakashi seriously…? "So they're not hurt?" he asked again, needing confirmation.

"Sasuke _didn't protest_ _._ In fact, it seemed like he _wanted_ to work with his teammates."

"Are you kidding me?" Izumo asked flatly, starting to feel real ire. His eye twitched, and he wished for his mask.

"Not at all. Sakura only hit Naruto once, but it might've been an accident."

"You…!" Izumo took a deep breath, closing his eyes. "I wasn't asking if you were kidding about that. Kakashi you nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought they'd been killed or something."

Clearly they were having two different conversations, because Kakashi just continued. "Izumo what the hell did you do to them? I couldn't find any signs of genjutsu with my Sharingan, but I know it's one of your specialties. Did you do something so subtle that I couldn't detect it?"

He was simultaneously flattered that Kakashi thought that much of his abilities, furious that the man seriously thought he would use illusions on children like that, and exasperated that the clueless jounin could be so obtuse. "I am not going to have this conversation here," he grumbled, settling for irritated in the end. "C'mon. Let's go to my ap-"

The chunin was cut off when Kakashi pulled him close to his body, and the world _whirled_ around them for a long moment. The closest comparison Izumo could find was when he went through Obito's portal, but even that wasn't quite right. Soon, his surroundings settled and he could see that he was in his apartment. Gasping for breath, he couldn't help but stumble into Kakashi's chest, gripping his arms tightly. That had been the fastest Body Flicker he'd ever experienced. It was moments like these that reminded him of the huge gap in abilities between him and his friend.

The jounin steadied him, having the grace to look guilty for a moment. Braced against the other man's body, Izumo suddenly remembered how his breath had hitched when he thought that Kakashi was going to kiss him. Fighting off a blush, the chunin extricated himself from the white-haired man's arms, and flopped down onto his couch. Suddenly he remembered that he was mad at the jounin. "No, I did not put your damned kids under an illusion to make them better students. That's totally unethical!" scowled Izumo.

Kakashi cocked his head a bit and studied him. Eventually he winced, as if he finally realized that he'd been making offensive accusations. "I didn't mean it in a bad way," he said almost meekly. Izumo ignored the fact that there was no 'good' way of telling someone you thought they put your genin under a long term genjutsu. "I just, uh, didn't understand what you did to make them take their training seriously."

Izumo rolled his eyes so hard it hurt. "Kakashi, they're _children_. I just manipulated them and made them see that they can do better together. It wasn't hard. First I had them fight me one on one and creamed them, and then we talked about how they could do better as a team, and they teamed up and beat me. After that they were all enthusiastic about fighting off stronger opponents together."

Kakashi shook his head. "That's impossible. There's no way that they could beat you, even if they coordinated all their strengths."

The chunin gaped for a moment, caught off guard by the other man's surety. His lips twitched upwards in a smile despite his best efforts. Izumo sighed, warmed by Kakashi's faith in his abilities. He took pity on the guy. "Come sit down. I'm getting tired of craning my neck up at you." When the ex-Anbu did as directed, Izumo couldn't resist placing a hand on his shoulder. "Kakashi, I took a dive."

The man furrowed his brow. "You mean you let them beat you?"

Izumo laughed. "Of course. The whole point was to motivate them to work together. I just showed them that they could beat stronger opponents as a team than they could as individuals. Of course they couldn't actually subdue me, but they just had to think that they could."

Kakashi stared at him blankly for a moment, before groaning and burying his face in his hands. "Of course. It's so obvious. I've spent over a month trying to drill the same thing into their thick skulls and you get them to cooperate in a few hours."

The chunin held back a chuckle, patting the distraught man on the back. "I'm such a terrible sensei," Kakashi moaned.

"No! It's just easier sometimes with an outside perspective," Izumo protested.

"I thought I could do this, no problem. Tenzo wasn't that much older than the brats when I started mentoring him. He turned out fine. 'How hard could teaching three of them be?' I said. Gods I was so ignorant."

Izumo bit off a smile, squeezing the other man's shoulder. "Tenzo was an Anbu already when you met him, I assume. Your genin are just children though. Even though they've all had their hardships, they haven't been exposed to ninja life yet. It's going to take time and patience."

Kakashi turned his head so that he could look at Izumo skeptically. "I knew that, or at least I thought I did. I spent weeks trying to bash their skulls in with the most obvious answers that they were too proud to see. You come along and completely turn them around in a day…" The man took a deep breath. "I'm not used to being bad at things," the jounin muttered.

"You're not a bad teacher, Kakashi," chided Izumo. "Just look at me. I learned so much from you. It's just… kids don't think the way that we do. Their brains aren't developed yet. They need a little more handholding—and yes, outright manipulation—than you're used to giving. Now that they're listening to you I'm sure that you can make them into a great team," he said encouragingly.

Kakashi sat up straight and stared at him again, similarly to how he'd done before. Izumo flushed under his attention. "I said that I owed you a favor before all this, but now I really owe you big time." The man grinned, and the chunin's breath caught at how attractive it made his mostly-uncovered face. "And I know just the thing. Do you have any plans tonight?"

"Uh plans?" asked Izumo. He was still having a hard time not staring at Kakashi's lips.

"Yeah. Are you busy? I'm going to need you for the evening, if not longer."

"Need me for the evening…?" he repeated dumbly. Get your mind out of the gutter, Kamizuki.

"If not longer," Kakashi confirmed cheerfully. "I have a technique that I want to teach you. It'll help you in the long run."

Izumo's mind flashed to all sorts of images of techniques that the other man could teach him, before he realized that Kakashi meant _ninjutsu_ techniques. He coughed uncomfortably, unsuccessfully willing his blush to go away. Of course the jounin hadn't been talking about bedroom- well, never mind anyway. "I, uh." Izumo cleared his throat. "No, no plans tonight."

"Great!" the jounin chirped. "Meet me at training ground three in about an hour. I've got some stuff to go prepare. I'll see you soon!"

Just as fast as he'd whirled into Izumo's apartment, the man disappeared, presumably off to prepare himself. Oh Gods, Izumo blushed at the inappropriate images that poor word choice caused. Kakashi was no doubt preparing his _ninjutsu training_ , not-uh, anything else. Right. The chunin stared blankly at the window. It was going to be a long hour.

"Izumo, good! You're here," beamed Kakashi. "Give me your hand."

Warily, the chunin did as instructed, jumping a little in surprise when the white-haired man slipped a stretchy material over his forearm. Kakashi repeated the process with his other arm as well. It looked like… "Is this rubber?" Izumo mused.

"Right in one. You're going to need it. Lightning manipulation can be very painful otherwise."

"Lightning manipulation?" repeated the brunet. "Are you going to be using ninjutsu on me?"

Kakashi blinked owlishly. "Using…? No of course not. I'm going to teach you a new technique." 

"What? Why?" asked Izumo, befuddled.

The other man looked completely nonplussed. "Er, I told you that I knew how to pay you back for helping me with the genin. Have you hit your head or something?" Kakashi placed the back of his hand on Izumo's forehead. The chunin blushed, reminded of his earlier thoughts. "Hm, you're a little bit warm."

Izumo backed up a step, chuckling nervously. "Right, I understand that. It's just- I don't have any affinity for lightning jutsu."

"Very few people actually have secondary affinities, Izumo. You can still learn techniques even without that advantage. Your primary skill is with water ninjutsu, which has a weakness to earth. Lightning is strong against earth, and is the best element for you to pick up."

"It'll take years for me master lightning nature manipulation though," protested the younger man.

"So? You don't need to be a master of the nature transformation to perform a few ninjutsu. It'll be good to have in your arsenal in case you ever need to fight an earth nature specialist. Besides, water is a good conductor, and I suspect that your Syrup Trap will be especially so."

Izumo cocked his head. He hadn't thought of that. He wasn't sure whether or not the adhesive nature of his technique would increase the conductivity of the water, but it very well might. The chunin was once again impressed by Kakashi's ability to think of novel ideas and approaches to ninja combat. There was a reason that he was one of the most feared shinobi in the world, and Izumo was lucky to be getting so much attention from him.

"Alright, how does it work then?"

Kakashi beamed at him.

"Alright here are the hand signs for the Lightning Bolt technique. It's a basic ninjutsu, categorized as a C-rank. It has pretty decent combat potential, which is why it's classified that high, but in my opinion it's the simplest lightning ninjutsu to learn."

The jounin formed the hand signs slowly, so that Izumo could see them all. Dog, hare, snake, ram, horse, monkey. Then, he thrust both of his palms forward, and a bolt of electricity arced between them for a moment, before shooting forward and piercing the tree in front of them. It left a scorching mark in the bark, maybe about two inches deep. Izumo raised an eyebrow. The ninjutsu didn't look impressive on the plant, but he knew that a human being would be seriously injured not just from the burn but from the electrocution as well.

"Go ahead and try it yourself," encouraged Kakashi.

Izumo furrowed his brow. Usually, he had a little more information about a technique than just the hand signs and the general effect before he attempted it. The chunin was acquainted with the white-haired man's teaching style though, and knew that he would only drop hints as necessary. Sighing a little (but secretly very excited to learn a whole new style of ninjutsu), Izumo squared his shoulders and stilled his chakra.

Hand signs were something of an esoteric concept. For some reason, forming arbitrary gestures associated with zodiac signs allowed a ninja to manipulate chakra in complex manners. Some chakra philosophers suggested that the motions themselves were meaningless, but rather their significance came from hundreds of thousands of ninja and other chakra adepts over the centuries leaving an impression on charka itself, almost like society had carved a map into their chakra systems, and hand signs were how they navigated it. The whole business seemed silly to Izumo, but that was why it was called philosophy and not science, he supposed.

Regardless, it was clear that the better one could manipulate his internal energies, the less reliance he had on hand signs. While learning a brand new technique in a different elemental style with only vague instructions, Izumo would be forced to rely on them completely, as well as a few other tricks.

Forming the seals carefully, the Anbu allowed his chakra to flow in the way the hand signs directed, almost independent from his conscious control. After making the monkey seal, he thrusts his palms forward like Kakashi had done. "Lightning Style: Lightning Bolt Technique," Izumo said clearly. For some reason, proper vocalization tended to help with the use of ninjutsu as well, even though it was almost never done in real combat.

There was a strange buzzing sensation between his hands, almost like static, but no arc formed. Carefully, Izumo halted the flow of chakra and shook his arms a little, dispersing the tension. Kakashi just hummed from behind his book. Luckily, he wasn't like the man's genin. The chunin was clever enough and experienced enough at working things out himself that he didn't need the other man to hand every solution to him. Besides, it was a fun intellectual challenge to work through the problems step by step.

The most obvious answer was that he hadn't used enough chakra. Trying the technique again, Izumo once more permitted his energies to flow without interfering too much. This time though, he forced twice as much chakra to his hands. "Lightning Style: Lightning Bolt Technique." The buildup of static was so jarring that it almost made him jerk back in surprise. The energy in the air set his teeth on edge, and there was an odd vibration between his palms. Finally, there was a tiny flash as a single jolt of electricity jumped from his right index finger to his left.

Izumo frowned. Technically speaking, his experiment had been a success. More chakra equated with more of an effect. However, thinking linearly, if the increase in chakra was proportional to the increase in lightning produced, then he would have to burn through very significant portions of his reserves to create a bolt the size of Kakashi's. The other man was doubtlessly more efficient with his energy, considering his experience and affinity with the nature transformation, but Izumo doubted that the jounin would teach him a technique that would be essentially useless in battle except for in desperate situations. There had to be another answer. He glanced towards the white-haired man, who was slouched casually against a tree. Based on the position of the book, the man was either a very slow reader, or hadn't been paying that much attention to it. Izumo repressed a smile.

Turning his focus back to his task, the brunet formed the hand signs once more. On his last two attempts, he'd just been trying to see how the technique worked in general. This time, Izumo directed his attention internally, using the awareness he'd gained over his weeks of sensory practice to better perceive exactly what it was his chakra was _doing_. Why did the electricity arc through both his hands? Why couldn't he just punch one forward and shoot of a lightning bolt? Paying close attention to what his chakra did in his hands, Izumo found himself interested in the buzzing sensation. At first, he'd assumed that it was a physical property of the electricity, but it started happening before he'd actually finished the technique, sometime around the fifth hand seal.

Izumo stopped before completing the ninjutsu, holding onto the feeling for as long as he could before it dissipated, trying to familiarize himself with it. Once he knew what he was looking for, the chunin started the seals over again. The familiar buzz occurred on the fifth hand sign, but on the sixth something interesting happened. The feeling _shifted_ somewhat, and became different in his left hand and his right. It was almost like they were humming at different frequencies, although that wasn't quite the right way to explain it. Extending his arms in front of him, Izumo focused on the difference between the two sensations, making his right more _right_ and his left more _left_ , for lack of a better vocabulary.

Immediately, electricity crackled between his arms, arcing back and forth between them three or four times before Izumo yelped in surprise and ripped his hands apart. It hadn't actually hurt, but his rational mind told him that it should have. The chunin understood better why Kakashi had given him rubber arm protectors. The lightning seemed to have a mind of its own.

The chunin was distracted from his thoughts by Kakashi clapping. "You never cease to impress me, Izumo," called the ex-Anbu cheerfully. "You've already got the trick on just your fourth attempt."

"I'd hardly call that battle-ready," protested the brunet, trying (and probably failing) to hide his blush at the praise.

"Of course not," agreed the jounin. "But you've discovered the key to lightning ninjutsu. That's the hardest part."

"You mean the… difference?"

"Difference?" mused Kakashi. "That's an interesting—albeit surprisingly apt—way of phrasing it. What do you know about lightning?"

"Uh, doesn't it have something to do with pressure differences in the clouds?" Izumo guessed.

"No that's weather fronts in general."

The chunin furrowed his brow. He was something of a bookworm, but that didn't mean that he was a science expert. Izumo shrugged. "Something about charges?"

"That's it!" beamed Kakashi. "Lightning is caused by an accumulation of negative charges in the clouds jumping down to an accumulation of positive charges in, say, a tree."

Izumo's face cleared, eyes widening. "Oh! So I was making one hand positive and the other negative?"

"Ehh," prevaricated the jounin. He held his right hand out in front of him, palm facing downwards, and rotated his wrist back and forth in a "so-so" gesture. "Keep in mind that it's not _actually_ lightning. When you do water nature transformation, you aren't actually making your chakra into water, just a form where it manipulates water more easily. The same is true here. The principles of lightning and lightning ninjutsu are similar, and produce a similar effect, but it's still chakra, not charges."

The younger man nodded to show his understanding. "So, I'm creating two _charge-like phenomena_ ," Izumo began with an eye roll, "That cause my chakra to act like lightning and zap back and forth between my palms."

"Got it in one!" praised the ex-Anbu.

"Hm," mused Izumo. "That all makes sense, but what about the last part? Where you shot the bolt from your hands? In nature that occurs because the tree had a collection of positive charges, but I doubt that's the case here." There was almost no way that every lightning ninjutsu used on an enemy required manipulating the opponent's chakra so that it was compatible with yours.

"That's an excellent question!" Kakashi exclaimed cheerfully.

Izumo waited for a moment. The jounin continued to smile at him guilelessly. The brunet's right eye twitched. Right. Of course Kakashi would never just hand him the answer. "Why don't I just try to figure it out myself?" Izumo huffed sarcastically.

"What a great idea. In the meantime, work on this." The white-haired man touched his thumb to his index finger. When he separated them, a small arc of electricity jumped between the digits. "This is the first exercise to help you master lightning nature transformation. Eventually you're going to want to get to this." Kakashi touched each of his four fingers in turn with his thumb, creating a small jolt every time. It was an exercise that Izumo had performed in the academy to help increase manual dexterity, except with high level ninjutsu. Simple.

Izumo put his thumb and pointer finger together, tried to concentrate his chakra to them, and pulled them apart. Nothing happened. Right. Even though the trick seemed simple, it would probably take him weeks, if not months, to get it right. And then, he still had to figure out how to turn the Lightning Bolt technique into a usable ninjutsu.

"Well, it looks like you've got enough to work on. I'll just get out of your way!"

With that, Kakashi disappeared in a poof of smoke. Izumo was a bit startled by the sudden departure, but just sighed. The other man was certainly… eccentric. The chunin wiggled his fingers a bit, staring at them flatly. Well, there was nothing to it but to start.

The good thing about working on lightning nature transformation, Izumo mused a couple of days later, was that it was unobtrusive. If he kept a hand free, the chunin could practice it almost absent mindedly as he walked through crowds or filled out a mission report. It had taken him a while to reproduce the effect without using hand signs. Izumo had another moment of appreciation for Kakashi's teaching skills (even if they didn't work well on genin). The man had shown him a ninjutsu that was not only effective in combat, but also helped him get a feel for lightning transformation.

The brunet had eventually gotten to the point where he could create a "positive" and "negative" charge in his fingers, rather than use the Lightning Bolt technique. It was fun to walk around playing with electricity, although if he was cornered Izumo would insist that he was just doing it to improve. He was still a novice with lightning transformation, obviously, but even his meager skills with it helped his ninjutsu. Rather than rely entirely on the hand signs to direct his chakra, he could nudge it to become lightning a little faster and a little more efficiently.

Learning nature manipulation was similar to learning a musical instrument like a guitar. Hand signs were "chords". As long as you knew the chords, you could pick up a guitar and play a song. However, an actual musician would have much better technique. They could use more complicated finger-picking patterns, strum better, use bar-chords, and experiment with the song in ways a complete novice couldn't. Similarly, anyone could perform an elemental ninjutsu with enough practice and the right hand signs. Learning nature manipulation properly though would allow the user to transform their chakra faster, with less cost, and for greater effects.

Similar to music, there was no 'end' to training nature transformation. Even master musicians still practiced their craft daily. Learning nature manipulation wasn't so much 'steps' or boxes to check of as it was a continuous process. Izumo knew that learning the technique to get electricity to arc between his fingers was only the first part of a long journey towards proficiency in the ninjutsu. He had to practice his water transformation too, even after 'mastering' it. However, it was exciting to be able to use a second element. He never thought he'd be all that proficient in one, let alone two.

The brunet was so focused on his fingers that he was caught completely off guard when he smacked straight into someone. Izumo felt his face heat up. He was a sensor and he still managed to completely lose awareness of where he was going. He rushed to help the other man, whose groceries had fallen onto the ground. "Oh! I'm so sorry! I wasn't looking where I- Kotetsu?"

The bandaged man stared back at him, dumbfounded. "Uh, Izumo. Are you… Hi," he finished lamely.

"Hi," the Anbu repeated. There was an awkward pause. Izumo scrambled to give his friend back his fallen produce. "Here, sorry again."

Kotetsu grabbed the bags with his hand that was already occupied, and the time-traveler suddenly remembered his friend's injury. "Your arm! Um, I mean, is it alright?"

"Yeah… I'm just not supposed to put any weight on it."

"Oh, right." There was another pause. The two of them stared at each other. "Come to my place," Izumo blurted. "I mean, if you want I can make you some tea."

"Yeah, I- sounds good," Kotetsu mumbled, looking a little relieved.

"It does? I mean… great! Uh, this way," Izumo gestured, as if Kotetsu hadn't been at his apartment hundreds of times.

"So," the other chunin began after they'd walked for a minute. "How are… things?"

Izumo wasn't sure if his friend was referring to Anbu, or just life in general. Either way the answer was the same. "Things are great, actually. Everything has gone really well so far."

"Good, that's… I'm glad to hear it."

"And how about your recovery? Is it going well?" The 'without me there to watch over you' went unspoken. Given the sudden tension in Kotetsu's shoulders, he heard it as well.

"Yeah, as well as can be expected. Doc thinks I'll be fully recovered in a year, and ready to start light duty in a couple of months."

"That soon?" Izumo blinked. He smiled. "That's great!"

Kotetsu ducked his head, embarrassed. "Thanks."

There was yet another long gap in the conversation. The Anbu couldn't think of a time that relations with his best friend had been this strained. "I missed you," he said suddenly, touching his hand to the other man's uninjured arm. Kotetsu stopped walking. They were at the door to Izumo's building so they weren't blocking traffic.

"I really miss you too," the other man muttered. "I still think…" Kotetsu glanced around them in frustration. They couldn't talk uncensored in public. "But… I regret what I said, and how I said it. You're my best friend and I should've been doing anything in my power to help you."

Izumo felt his eyes prickle a little bit before he forcibly wrestled himself back under control. "That means a lot to me, Ko'".

They continued walking up the stairs, silent again but this time lacking the thick blanket of jitters and awkwardness. By the time Izumo was slotting his key into the door, he felt mostly at ease. As he pushed the door open though, the anxiety came right back when the chunin saw the window curtains fluttering in the breeze. If the window was open, that meant…

"Hey," Kakashi said casually, leaning against the wall that separated the living room from the kitchen.

Izumo didn't have any reason to feel guilty. He had every right to bring his best friend back to his own apartment, and it wasn't like the jounin had made plans with him or anything. Still the sight of Kakashi's mask was a bit jarring. The man never wore it when they cooked together, and seeing it on his face made Izumo feel like the white-haired man was uncomfortable with him, even though logically he knew that it was just due to the fact he didn't want Kotetsu to see his face.

"Kakashi! What's up?" The Anbu member was thankful that his voice didn't seem to betray any of his insecurities.

The man casually lifted his right arm, and Izumo noticed the plastic bag hanging from it. The logo was for a takeout place that the jounin preferred. "Just got some food. The kids convinced the Hokage to give them a C-ranked mission, so we'll be gone for a week or two, at least."

"You didn't have to do that!" blushed Izumo. "If you'd told me, I would have made something up. We could've invited the kids. Going out of the village for the first time is a big deal and they…" He trailed off before pointing out that two-thirds of the team were family-less orphans. Make that three-fourths, if you included their sensei.

Kakashi's casualness faded a little as he smiled at the brunet. "I spend enough time with those brats as it is. Besides, if I ate with them I'd have to keep my mask on. You should see the pranks they pull to try to get a glimpse of my face. It's adorable. I'll let them know that you send your well-wishes though. It'll make their days. Naruto will shout something happy. Sasuke may grunt a bit in contentment."

Izumo grinned fondly at the other man, unable to contain his smile. "Don't be so tough on them. They're good kids." Shaking his head, he moved towards the kitchen. "C'mon, help me get some plates so that we can eat that."

As he walked by the jounin, Kakashi grabbed his arm gently, halting his progress. "I can't stay or else I wouldn't have brought take-out instead of cooking. There's some things I need to do. You and Hagane can enjoy it." The look that the white-haired man directed towards Kotetsu was significantly cooler than how he'd been watching Izumo. Suddenly, the chunin remembered that he'd told the man about how he and his friend had a falling out.

"Are you sure?" asked the brunet uncertainly.

Kakashi beamed at him. "Yep! Have a good time!" The man moved casually towards the window. "Good luck on any missions you take while I'm gone. I'll see you soon, Izumo." He glanced towards Kotetsu. "Hagane," said the jounin simply in farewell before he was gone.

Kotetsu stared at him in disbelief. "Woah! You and Kakashi Hatake…?"

"It's not like that!" insisted Izumo, blushing. "We're just friends."

His friend gave him an unimpressed look. "Yeah right. Pull the other one. So you guys eat together on the regular enough—where you cook for him, apparently—that he feels comfortable showing up at your place unannounced to tell you that he's going to be on a mission out of the village?"

"Okay, so that sounds a little suspect," acknowledged the Anbu. "But he doesn't really have many friends. I think that I may be his closest one at this point, and he knows that I'd be worried if I didn't hear from him for weeks."

"He could've sent you a note," Kotetsu countered with a quirked eyebrow. "And are you raising a genin team with him or something?"

Izumo blushed again. "I just looked after them a few days ago. They're good kids," he defended himself.

"Sure, sure," Kotetsu said with a mischievous grin. "They'll be good practice for when you and Hatake have spronglets of your own."

"Kotetsu! Kakashi and I aren't together so stop bugging me about it!" Izumo wasn't sure about his feelings for the other man, but what he did know was that the jounin was an expert at reading people (even if he was bad at interacting with them). There was no doubt that his attraction towards Kakashi was obvious, and given the man's silence on the matter, unreciprocated.

"Aw, Izumo, I didn't mean to tease," his friend chuckled sheepishly. "I'm really glad to see that you made a friend, even if he doesn't seem to like me very much."

Izumo flushed at the reminder. "Oh, that… I kind of told him about, err, our argument."

Not it was Kotetsu's turn to look embarrassed. "Yeah, that'd do the trick, wouldn't it? I'd be pissed too if my boyfriend's best friend was a jerk to him."

"Kotetsu!" he cried indignantly, but couldn't resist the smile that spread across his face. It was nice just to have moments like these (annoying as they were) with his friend again.

"What?" the bandaged man asked with faux innocence. "We should eat the takeout before it goes cold."

Izumo narrowed his eyes at the man, but ultimately let the matter drop. "Right. You know where the plates and silverware are."

As Kotetsu moved into the kitchen, he stopped and rested a heavy hand on the Anbu's shoulder. "It's really good to share a meal with you again, Izumo. I still don't understand why you did what you did, but… maybe you can tell me about it over dinner. Fill me in on all the things I've missed, including how you became the Copy-Nin's not-boyfriend."

Izumo ignored the tease, moving into the kitchen with a smile. "Sure thing," he said easily. After all, they had a lot to catch up on.


	8. Prelude: Kakashi

A/N: Well, it's definitely been a while, but here's the next chapter! I've included a short summary of the whole story, below, so that if you don't want to, you don't have to go back and reread the whole thing in order to catch up.

Summary: Miraculously, chunin Izumo Kamizuki manages to free himself from the Infinite Tsukuyomi during Naruto and Sasuke's fight with Kaguya. Unlike in canon, however, Obito does not sacrifice himself to save Kakashi or Naruto, and Kaguya kills them as well as Sasuke. Obito senses that Izumo woke himself from the ultimate genjutsu, but claims that it was a fluke, merely a one in a billion chance. He reveals that his Mangekyo Sharingan has the power to open portals to the past, but that he himself cannot travel through them because it creates a temporal paradox that destabilizes the portal. Instead, Izumo goes back to the past and wakes up in his past self's body during the night that Naruto stole the Forbidden Scroll of Seals. He leads Kotetsu to the forest where Naruto is hiding, but unknowingly interrupts the scene where Mizuki is henged as Iruka, and Iruka is transformed to appear like Naruto. Mizuki severely injures Kotetsu, and then fights Izumo and Iruka. Izumo is extremely chakra-exhausted from being captured by the World Tree, and loses his fight; however, Naruto saves them similar to canon. This experience leads him to publicly thank Naruto the next day and swear to become stronger, a fact which earns Naruto's trust, as well as that of the Third Hokage. Claiming that he had always seen Izumo's potential, but didn't want to force him into front-line combat, Sarutobi nominates him for an open spot in Anbu, a spot that opened up because Kakashi left to take on a genin team. Izumo is tested by Cat, Monkey, and the Captain, whom he later finds out to be Yugao Uzuki, Kage (a minor, but canon Anbu character) and Tenzo, respectively. Along the way, he gains expertise in Yin/Yang manipulation and water ninjutsu. Kakashi, who watches to make sure his team is in good hands, helps him understand water nature manipulation, and in return Izumo cooks him a meal, which is the catalyst that starts their friendship. Izumo also learns that being connected to the God Tree in the future changed his chakra in subtle ways, making him better able to connect to the natural 'field' of nature chakra surrounding the world, thus giving him sensory abilities. Over the next couple of months, Izumo and Kakashi trade a lot more meals and favors, including Izumo spending a day looking after Team Seven and tricking them into learning the value of teamwork. Before they go on their first C-ranked mission to wave, Kakashi stops by Izumo's apartment and warns him that they'll be gone for a week or two.

Chapter 7

Maybe Izumo would've been worried if he hadn't grown up as a ninja. All his life, the people he'd cared about left to go on missions, and often took longer than expected. It hardly even phased him anymore when a comrade was gone twice as long as they should've been. Izumo himself had been so busy with his Anbu team—quite a lot of espionage and information gathering took place prior to hosting a chunin exam, apparently—that it didn't even occur to him to worry about how Team Seven's first C-ranked mission. In fact, he didn't think about it at all until a blonde, child-shape missile rocketed towards his midsection at full blast nearly a month after he last spoke with Kakashi.

"Izumo, Izumo, IZUMO!" Naruto shouted excitedly, wrapped around the chunin and hanging off him like a limpet. "Guess what? Guess what?!"

"Uh… Naruto," Izumo drawled, nonplussed. "You're back from your mission then?"

" _Duh_. C'mon, guess what!"

"Wh-"

"I got a whole _bridge_ named after me!" cheered Naruto.

"Um, what?" Izumo furrowed his brow and wondered if he was maybe still asleep. What bridge? What was the kid talking about?

Naruto finally released him, and then started hopping back and forth from one foot to the other, unable to contain his excitement. "Yeah! Old man Tazuna said that I inspired the whole village- oh! But I guess I gotta tell you about Inari, oh and all the missing nin-"

"Missing nin!" Izumo interjected, sounding a bit strangled. Now that Naruto mentioned it, he did have a vague memory of hearing that Team Seven's first C-ranked mission went wonky and ended up much more complicated than it should have been, but that story was nothing compared to tales of the blonde going with Jiraya to find the Fifth Hokage, or saving the village from Pein, so Izumo hadn't heard too much about it.

"Naruto!" shouted a voice to their left. Izumo turned to see Sakura and Sasuke standing there, looking exasperated and annoyed, respectively. "Stop yelling at Izumo-sensei! He's not going to understand _anything_ unless you start from the _beginning_ ," Sakura scolded.

"I told you that you don't have to call me sensei, Saukra," protested Izumo weakly.

"Oh, right. Good idea Sakura!" Naruto continued as if Izumo hadn't spoken. Then he proceeded to recount their mission to an increasingly amazed Izumo.

"So let me get this straight," the brunet began. "The three of you managed to rescue your sensei when he got himself trapped by Zabuza's water prison, learned tree-climbing in under a week, and then successfully worked together to defeat his apprentice?"

"Believe it! We did just like you showed us, Izumo! Haku trapped Sasuke in his weird ice mirror thingies, but I distracted him with my shadow clones and when they popped, Sakura used the replacement technique to switch places with Sasuke, and then we broke the mirrors because they weren't as strong from the back, or something."

Izumo glanced at Sakura, surprised. Using the replacement jutsu to switch with a living person was extremely advanced, but then he shouldn't be surprised that she was skilled with yang chakra, considering her future medical talents.

The pink haired girl blushed. "Well, I've been practicing ever since we worked with you. I didn't realize how useful even basic ninjutsu could be against strong opponents."

Naruto grinned at her. "Oh yeah, she was super awesome! We totally had Haku on the ropes, until…" The blonde trailed off, visibly deflating.

"He sacrificed himself to save Zabuza from Kakashi's chidori," continued Sasuke. Izumo couldn't tell how the Uchiha felt about their enemy's death. The boy's face showed only careful neutrality. However, his teammates weren't as good at controlling their expressions. For some reason, the kids were deeply saddened by Haku's death. Well, it could be that—other than Sasuke—it had been the first time they'd seen someone die.

"I can't believe you all completed an A-ranked mission on your first time out of the village! All your friends will be so jealous," Izumo said with somewhat exaggerated cheer. "We definitely have to go out and celebrate!"

That prospect seemed to perk the three genin right back up, especially Naruto. "Ramen!" he insisted.

"Sure, sure," agreed Izumo. "Do you happen to know where your sensei went? I'll tell him about our plans."

Apparently, none of the genin knew where Kakashi was, or even where he lived, so Izumo bid them farewell and split off to find the jounin. He'd actually never been to Kakashi's apartment, but he hadn't been practicing his skills as a sensor for nothing. After a moment of concentration to connect his chakra with the blanket field of nature chakra surrounding him, the chunin headed off in the direction of the training grounds. He didn't realize just where his senses were taking him until he'd already arrived.

Kakashi was standing in front of the Memorial Stone, and showed no signs of noticing him, although Izumo highly doubted that the man was truly unaware of his presence. The brunet cautiously made his way over to the stone as well and stood beside his friend silently. This wasn't the kind of place that one visited in a happy mood. Kakashi's solemn expression confirmed that. Maybe for genin, going on an exciting mission with lots of criminals and danger was fun, but it had to be hell on their sensei.

Rather than interrupt Kakashi's thoughts, Izumo turned his attention to the stone. A lot of his own family and friends had their names there. He didn't know how long he stood there—probably at least a half an hour—before Kakashi broke the silence.

"The kids told you about our mission, then?"

Izumo nodded, unsure how to answer. Kakashi sounded uncharacteristically serious.

The quiet stretched on uncomfortably, until the other man spoke again.

"I had to be rescued by my genin on their first real mission."

The chunin inhaled sharply, before managing to control himself. It didn't matter; Kakashi's shoulders still tightened from that one expression of surprise. "The water prison?" Izumo ventured. "When they told me… I assumed that you had things under control, and were letting them spread their wings like with the Demon Brothers."

Kakashi barked out a laugh, but it had no humor in it. "That's generous of you Izumo. No. The Demon Brothers are one thing, but I'd never let my students cut their teeth on a man like Zabuza Momichi. He really had me trapped. If their crazy plan hadn't worked then he would've drowned me, and then killed Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto."

Izumo found himself at a loss once again. He was familiar with survivor's guilt, and with the sensation that he should've done more to help his comrades. Every ninja went through it, and he must've had this conversation with friends a dozen times, but it never really got easier to help someone through it.

"That's the whole point of teamwork, Kakashi. That's the whole point of the Will of Fire," he tried tentatively. "A team looks after each other's backs-"

"It's not supposed to be the genin protecting their jounin sensei," Kakashi interrupted mildly. "Gods know I never had to rescue my sensei from his own messes."

"That's not fair!" protested Izumo. "Your sensei was one of the greatest ninja to have ever lived. Besides, don't forget that you _did_ protect your students. You defeated Zabuza, _twice_ , and there's no way the kids would've stood a chance against him if you hadn't. Yeah, you needed a little help, but you came through when it counted."

Kakashi stared at the stone for a long moment. "I wasn't sure, you know. That I could beat him the first time. And then I wasn't sure I'd recover fast enough to beat him the second time, or that my team would be strong enough to survive against the apprentice." A pause. "It's been a long time since I wasn't sure."

Izumo hesitated, but carefully placed his hand on Kakashi's shoulder. "That must have been… terrifying." The other man didn't say anything to agree, but he didn't disagree either. He also didn't shake off Izumo's hand.

After a moment, the jounin continued. "There's no one in this village I couldn't beat in a fight, other than the Hokage or maybe Gai. After us, Tenzo has a reasonable claim at second best. When I was on Team Ro, there were very few people in the world that I would have to be truly afraid of. Plus, we're at peace right now. It's not like I fought enemies on Zabuza's caliber very often, even with my Anbu team. The last time I fought someone like that on my own was during the War. And quite frankly, I don't think I did that much better than my fourteen-year-old self would've done."

"You can't mean that!" Izumo protested. "You're Sharingan Kakashi, the master of over a thousand jutsu. You've come a long way since then."

For the first time, the other man turned to face him directly. "You don't understand what this eye is like, Izumo. It's… almost indescribable, the power it gives me. I can't actually see the future, but it perceives even the tiniest flinches, so I can predict exactly how my opponent will move. It detects their chakra, so I know what ninjutsu they'll use, and I can prepare any one of the hundreds of techniques I've copied to find the perfect counter. It breaks genjutsu effortlessly, without even a thought, and I can cast my own powerful and complex illusions just by making eye contact with someone. For over a decade I've dedicated myself to uncovering its secrets, and I still suspect that even now I've only found a fraction of them. The Uchiha weren't exactly forthcoming, even before they died.

"But," Kakashi said heavily. "It has very real drawbacks. It consumes the majority of my chakra, even when I'm not using it. When I was on my team, they could cover me. I didn't have to worry so much about exhaustion because our fights were never that long. Team Ro got our enemies off balance and the sharingan showed me exactly how to exploit those openings to overwhelm them. I never realized until it was too late just how dependent I've gotten on my eye, or how much I allowed my other skills to deteriorate. And it's a trap. I _know_ that I can make my eye stronger, that there are more levels to the sharingan, but if I pursue them then I'll become even more dependent on it, and even less able to fight without it."

"Then stop," Izumo interjected.

Kakashi furrowed his brow. "What?"

The chunin flushed. "Ah, sorry… but, the solution seems obvious to me. I get that the sharingan is incredibly powerful. Really." He'd seen how Obito and Sasuke and Madara could bat aside even elite shinobi like they were insects, just because of the power of their eyes. But for whatever reason, they didn't seem to have the same limitations that Kakashi did, perhaps due to him not being an Uchiha. "You're probably right that you can make your Sharingan even stronger… but you're _more_ than the sharingan, Kakashi."

Izumo reached out with his other hand, grabbing the man by both shoulders and looking at him directly in his visible eye. "You're an incredible shinobi in your own right. You became a jounin before getting the Sharingan. Tenzo tells me that you've mastered nature transformation for all five elements!"

At this, Kakashi looked somewhat sheepish. "Ah, well, _mastered_ is a bit of an exaggeration-"

"Most people are proud to use two elements. You can do advanced chakra transformation with all five, _plus_ yin-yang, and proficiency in genjutsu, taijutsu, kenjustu-"

"Okay, okay, I get it," interjected Kakashi, but with a slight smile.

"The point is," Izumo continued quietly. "that you're incredible. The sharingan isn't the only path to power, Kakashi. You're a genius. You're the smartest, most talented man I've ever known. I know you can do anything you set your mind to."

"You're making me blush," the jounin protested.

"Alright, alright. But seriously, I _know_ that if you want to become stronger without being dependent on your eye, you can do it."

What was visible of Kakashi's face was looking almost… fond, and so Izumo found that he was brave enough to add: "And… I'll help, too." Immediately, Izumo blushed and tried to backtrack. "Not that I presume I could teach you anything that you don't know! You're incredible! Amazing, even, and I'm just a chunin. I just meant that- brainstorming! I'm a good thinker." Izumo flushed. Wow. _A good thinker_. "I could be a sounding board, I mean, if you want."

Kakashi was clearly grinning, even with three quarters of his face covered. The other man clasped his bicep. "I'd appreciate that." Kakashi's gaze softened. "You know, Izumo, you're a really fantastic friend. I'm not sure what I would've done without you. Probably something dumb, involving alcohol."

Izumo's breath caught. The way Kakashi was looking at him now, he could almost convince himself that it wasn't just friendship that- but no. That was crazy. Kakashi had a million opportunities to do, well… whatever he wanted to do, if he had wanted to do… whatever. Getting flustered, Izumo blurted the first thing that came to mind. "Haha, that's me, a good friend. Kotetsu's told me something similar probably a thousand times."

For a moment, an odd, inscrutable expression crossed Kakashi's face, before it returned to a smile. Kakashi chuckled and stepped back, taking his hand off Izumo's arm, and pulling out of the chunin's grasp. Izumo felt another wave of embarrassment when he realized that he'd been grabbing the guy that whole time.

"Yeah, Hagane's really lucky to have you."

Izumo opened his mouth, but wasn't quite sure how to respond. He was still a bit flustered.

"Anyway," Kakashi continued before the pause grew too long. "Thank you, really." The genuine expression was back. "I appreciate you coming to find me, and I really do want to take you up on your offer. You've got a good head on your shoulders, so I'm sure you'll come up with a few interesting ideas. Now then, I was supposed to give in my mission report to the Hokage, ohhh…" The man glanced at his wrist. He wasn't wearing a watch. "About three hours ago, give or take. Tootles."

Before Izumo could blink, Kakashi disappeared in a swirl of leaves. Chuckling, the chunin set off back towards the village proper. He had to find team seven again and… oh crud! He never even got a chance to tell Kakashi about going out for dinner!

"What about your summons?"

A few days after their conversation, Izumo and Kakashi were back in the chunin's apartment. He'd cooked them both a meal (Kakashi was becoming adept at serving as his sous chef) and they were taking a stab at thinking about how to increase the jounin's already prodigious skillset.

"Hm? What about them?" Kakashi replied.

"Well, they're something that's uniquely _you_. It's something that you developed, unrelated to the sharingan. Could you train another nin-dog, or maybe use them in a different way?"

Kakashi appeared to give the idea some thought. "I could always train another one, but that would take a lot of time, for quite frankly little benefit. They're useful, even in battle, but they aren't primarily combat oriented. My dogs aren't like the toad clan or the snakes. They don't grow to be mountain sized or anything like that. My clan primarily used them for hunting and tracking."

Izumo hummed. "How about Inuzuka clan techniques? Do you think you could train your summons to do the beast-man transformation, or any of the other ninjutsu like that?" He imagined Kakashi turning into a massive, three-headed wolf with a sharingan eye. It was an impressive image.

Kakashi put a hand to his chest and gave Izumo a scandalized look. "Me? Steal secret techniques from other ninja? How could you accuse me of such a thing?"

Izumo rolled his eyes. "So is that a 'yes' then?"

The other man chuckled, but shook his head. "If the problems were just political I'd consider it. The Inuzuka couldn't be nearly as bad as the Uchiha, after all. Nevertheless, there's a difference between my nin-dogs and their ninken. Ninken are bred specifically, and partner with an Inuzuka for their whole life. It's more than just ninjutsu; it's a merging of chakra on a level that my summons could never do."

"Hm, well it was a thought, I guess."

"Next idea, then," Kakashi gestured to the list in Izumo's hands. The chunin had come prepared, with highlighted and indexed notes. He was something of a meticulous organizer.

Even though the list was quite clear, Izumo still hesitated. Now they were getting into touchier subjects. "Ah… well, I was thinking that maybe you could consider trying to recreate the Hirashin." It made sense. If anyone had a chance of doing so, it would be the Fourth's genius student.

Kakashi didn't seem offended at all. "Oh, no need for that. I mastered it years ago."

Izumo stared at him. "You what?"

The jounin blinked back at him guilelessly. "I mastered the Hirashin when I was a teenager. Is this surprising to you? The Fourth was my sensei, and I had the sharingan for a while before he died. Why _wouldn't_ I know his favorite technique?"

Izumo gaped, opening and closing his mouth soundlessly while he tried to figure out how to respond. A wordless noise escaped him before he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Kakashi," he gritted out. "We are trying to figure out how you can improve your combat abilities, and you didn't think to mention that you know _the most powerful technique ever created_?!"

Kakashi's eye widened in realization. "Ohhh! That! No, the Hirashin isn't nearly as useful as you think."

"What the- what do you mean it isn't useful? The Fourth literally defeated armies with it."

His friend shrugged. "Hirashin isn't actually 'the most powerful technique ever'. Keep in mind that it was created long before sensei had been born. Minato was incredible, and he used it in ways that nobody had ever imagined, but make no mistake: it was the Fourth that made Hirashin powerful, not the other way around. In itself, Hirashin is just a technique that teleports the user to a pre-marked location."

Izumo imagined that this must be what kids felt like when their parents tried to convince them that the tooth fairy wasn't real. He was deeply skeptical. "So the Hirashin _just_ lets you teleport instantly to anywhere, and your mastery of it is supremely useless?" he drawled sarcastically.

"Not _useless_ ," Kakashi allowed, "but can you imagine being in a battlefield, with ninjutsu and weapons flying everywhere? You've got a hundred marked kunai there, but they don't stay in one place. They move around, get kicked, or the ground is displaced by a technique, etcetera. You need to pay attention to _everything_. If you teleport in front of a kunai- bam! Dead. Teleport in slightly the wrong orientation, with your back to an enemy? Also dead. Accidentally teleport yourself a few centimeters too low, and your foot's stuck in the ground, which makes you-"

"Dead," Izumo finished. He paled, thinking about how many variables one would have to keep in their head. "But… to be able to think about all of that, and react and perform the technique fast enough to keep ahead of even people like the Raikage and his brother… The Fourth must've been a genius of the highest magnitude!"

Kakashi smiled. "He was. Now you're getting it. Minato-sensei was the kind of genius that made _me_ look like a dunce. Plus, he kept it secret, but he also had unparalleled sensory abilities. It's how he could maintain total awareness of his surroundings at all times. Being a sensor is a prerequisite for using Hirashin the way he did. Just having a tagged kunai isn't enough. You've got to be able to distinguish between dozens, or even hundreds of them, in a fraction of a second, and activate only the one you want. And unfortunately, I have a lot of talents, but sensing isn't one of them."

Izumo allowed himself a moment to take that in. He'd always known that the Fourth was incredible, of course, but he hadn't really _understood_ just how far out of everyone's league Minato Namikaze had been. But sensing- Izumo grinned. "I can teach you how to connect to the natural chakra field! Then you could use the Hirashin to its fullest potential!" He was excited that he could _actually_ teach Kakashi something useful!

However, the jounin rubbed at the back of his head sheepishly. "Ah, sorry Izumo, but it's not that simple. Not everyone has the ability to learn that skill. I've tried before, but I'm not able to make contact with the field of nature chakra safely. It's too hard for me to keep it separate from my own chakra, and if you're not careful with it, nature chakra can turn you into stone."

That surprised Izumo. He never imagined that he'd be more innately talented at something than Kakashi, even though it was only because he'd been captured by a God Tree and had part of his essence converted from human into something more closely related to nature chakra.

"Besides," Kakashi continued, "It wouldn't make a difference. Even if I could be taught sensing, I'd have to sit still for it to work. That wouldn't be useful in a fight."

"You're right," agreed Izumo. All the talk of nature chakra drew his attention to something else on his list though. He didn't know too much about it, because it was a legend, after all, but it might solve their problem. "Well, what about learning to become a sage?"

"What?"

He could tell that he truly caught Kakashi off guard this time.

"Ah, well a sage is-"

"I know what a sage is," Kakashi interjected. "What made you think of it?" He didn't sound dismissive, just curious.

"Er, sages take nature chakra into themselves and mix it with their own energies, right?"

Kakashi just stared at him. Izumo started to worry that he'd been completely wrong when the man responded: "I can see that Tenzo's been telling you stories. You know that isn't common knowledge, right?"

Izumo flushed and ducked his head. Crud. He only knew that much because Naruto was more than willing to brag about his ability in the future, and word travelled fast. He hadn't realized that it was a secret, but it made sense in hindsight. He'd have to be more careful.

"Oh, sorry I assumed that you knew, given…" Izumo trailed off. He actually had no idea what he meant by that, but Kakashi seemed to think he did. His white hair bobbed as he nodded and his expression became thoughtful.

"Ah well," continued Izumo, "If sensors normally perceive the 'echo' of chakra as it causes ripples in the nature chakra field, it seems logical that a sage would be attuned to those echoes, and probably have sensory abilities." Technically, he _knew_ that sages had incredible range and clarity to their senses, because Naruto had said so. Izumo knew better than to assume anything was common knowledge now, though.

Kakashi hummed. "That makes sense, in theory. Now that I think about it, sensei once told me a story once about how Jiraya used sage-mode to spy on women bathing, so it certainly could be possible." Kakashi grinned at him. "But Izumo, are you suggesting that I learn the forbidden and secret art of manipulating sage chakra, so that I can take advantage of the hypothetical sensory benefits that I _might_ receive, in order to master a teleportation technique that I may or may not be able to use to its fullest potential? That is possibly the most convoluted training plan I've ever heard of."

The chunin laughed as well, rubbing at the back of his head. "Yeah, I guess you're right. There's a lot of 'ifs' in there."

"Definitely. Only two people—the First Hokage and Jiraya—have been confirmed to have mastered sage-mode in Konoha's entire history. I don't think anyone ever imagined learning it as a _stepping stone_ to mastering a completely different technique."

"Probably not," Izumo agreed.

Kakashi smiled at him fondly. "Only you, Izumo. Nevertheless, the best chance I have of that is finding Jiraya and asking him ever so politely to teach me his most powerful technique. Plus, then I'd have to actually _learn_ the it, something few ninja have ever done, and _then_ try to adapt it to use with the Hirashin. I'd say that this is extremely hypothetical at best. Maybe we should focus on something else."

Izumo nodded, but he was distracted by thoughts of Naruto, who in just a few short years would actually master sage-mode. It wasn't nearly as hypothetical as Kakashi would think. "Still… just… promise me that _if_ you see Jiraya any time soon, you'll ask about it? You're the student of his student, and that means something. It sounds crazy but I know that if anyone could do it, you could."

"Alright," Kakashi conceded. "I promise." He extended his pinky, and chuckling, Izumo wrapped his own little finger around it. "Pinky promise!" grinned the jounin.

"So, these have certainly been inspiring and entertaining thoughts, but do you have any other trump cards on that list of yours? Maybe something that I could work on until Jiraya bestows upon me the greatest secrets in the world?" As if suddenly recalling something, Kakashi glanced down and patted at his kunai pouch fondly. "Other than the great mysteries he's _already_ shared with us, that is."

Rolling his eyes, Izumo grumbled. "You pervert. Those books are _not_ great legends or whatever. They're just porn."

"Just porn!" Now Kakashi was stroking his bag, the weirdo. "Don't worry, precious. I'm sure mean old Izumo didn't really mean it."

"Trust me, I did," Izumo drawled. "As for other ideas…" He trailed off. He thought the Hirashin would be a touchy subject, his next-best idea was potentially worse.

Sensing the shift in mood, Kakashi sobered. "Something I won't like?"

Izumo hesitated. "Well, maybe. It's just… I did some research, tried to figure out what your skillset was before the sharingan. I know that you were promoted to jounin before receiving it after all."

The expression on the other man's face was blank. "Ah."

Wincing, Izumo noted that his fears were confirmed. Definitely a sore subject, but he'd already started so he might as well continue. "I found some notes… Um. People were impressed at how skilled you were with your father's- uh, I mean, your chakra sabre."

Real chakra sabers were extremely rare. Any blacksmith worth their name in a ninja village could make a blade that was receptive to chakra, but a true chakra sabre was more than that. They tended to appear in the oldest clans, because it took more than one generation to attune the weapon. Clans would spend decades feeding their chakra into the blade, and spilling their blood with it, and the blood of their enemies. There was a certain amount of luck involved as well. No one knew for certain what it was that caused the blade to finally shift from consuming chakra to producing it. Nevertheless, after generations of blood and chakra sacrifices, a true chakra sabre would convert the user's energy into a far more powerful and deadly version. It was perfect for someone like Kakashi who was limited by his reserves.

After an awkward pause, the jounin replied flatly. "My father's sabre… it broke."

That didn't invite any response, but Izumo wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. "Could you… did you ever look into getting it repaired?" he asked gently. It was a stupid question. Of course Kakashi did. You didn't just let something as valuable as a chakra sabre-

"No."

Blinking, Izumo waited for more. "No?" he coaxed, eventually.

Kakashi seemed to visibly steel himself before continuing. "Well, the mission where it broke was the one where I got my eye. From then on out I focused more on the sharingan. It didn't seem necessary to inquire about fixing the sabre."

Izumo stare at him incredulously. "It didn't seem necessary…?" To fix a chakra sabre, one of the most valuable weapons a ninja could possess, a weapon that had made Sakumo Hatake as feared as the Sannin?

Kakashi stood abruptly, walking towards the window. For a moment, Izumo was afraid that he'd pushed too far and that the man was really going to leave. However, he just stood there for a while, gazing outside at the village. Izumo stayed quiet, not wanting to disrupt their fragile truce. Finally, the other man turned back towards him.

"There's no guarantee it could even be fixed."

"You're right," Izumo agreed quietly.

"Even if it could, it might never be the same, or be as powerful."

"True." They were all logical arguments, but it seemed like Kakashi had never even inquired about the possibility.

Kakashi studied him for a while, and Izumo just remained silent, trying to keep eye contact. There must be a reason for the jounin's actions, something personal… something that Kakashi was trying to decide whether to trust Izumo with.

When the answer finally came, it was not quite a whisper, but it was as soft as the slide of steel between a man's ribs, and just as cruel. "My father committed seppuku with that blade."

Oh. _Oh_. Izumo felt himself pale as the implications hit him. Kakashi had spent years fighting a war that his own father helped cause, with a sabre that the man had used to kill himself. Gods. He could feel his eyes begin to water and ruthlessly suppressed the urge to cry. He should be the one comforting Kakashi, not the other way around. For a man to commit seppuku with a blade he knew would be inherited by his son… it was beyond cruel. Even so…

"It makes sense," Izumo said unintentionally, stupidly. Immediately he wished that he could take it back.

" _What_ "

Izumo had never been afraid of Kakashi before, and he wasn't now. The jounin wasn't radiating any killer intent, but he was extremely tense, and his gaze felt more like a glare. Wow, Izumo. Could he have picked a more insensitive thing to say? He'd managed to tangle himself in an unbelievably complex scenario. It wasn't his place to speculate about Kakashi's father's motives or his thoughts. However, he had to say _something_. Izumo tried to order his next words carefully.

"In…" he began tentatively, "In the Warring States era, it wasn't uncommon for clan member to commit seppuku using their family's chakra sabre." Kakashi said nothing. Of course, his clan actually _had_ a chakra sabre, so he probably knew all about that, even better than Izumo, despite the chunin's extensive research on the subject.

Izumo continued. "They believed… they believed that by doing so, they could feed not only their chakra to the blade, but also their life force. It was supposed to make the sabre even more powerful." He paused. Now he was really in dangerous territory. "I- your father… that is…" Izumo floundered for a moment before trying again. "There was a note in your file. People thought that your attunement to the sabre was unusually strong. Even for a genius… It's supposed to be incredibly difficult to win the allegiance of a chakra sabre, but you started using yours almost immediately after… well." Kakashi had, according to all accounts, picked up the sword the day after Sakumo died and wielded it as if he'd been doing so for years.

"Maybe… I mean, I know it's twisted, but maybe he… did what he did, because he was trying to protect you. Maybe he knew that a part of him- that his lifeforce would remain in the sabre, and give you a better chance of surviving the war."

The silence following his speculation was almost painful. Izumo didn't have the courage to meet Kakashi's eye, so he wasn't sure how the other man was reacting, but based on his body language, the jounin was still processing.

"I never thought about it that way," Kakashi said eventually. It was strange, how _normal_ the man sounded. They could've been talking about the weather. He seemed to have recovered his equilibrium. "When my father's blade broke, part of me was grateful, you know," Kakashi mused. "Some days I could barely stand the sight of it."

Izumo dared to look up. Kakashi seemed less tense; his eye was on the wall behind the chunin, but his gaze was unfocused. "It wasn't because it reminded _me_ of him, or at least not just because of that. It reminded everyone else of him. At the time, I was so ashamed of him. He broke the rules, abandoned his mission, and everyone else was suffering because of it. I hated being in his shadow, and the sharingan was my chance to escape it. No one looked at my eye and thought of Sakumo Hatake. It didn't even occur to me that I might be able to fix the chakra sabre."

"I'm sorry," Izumo said. He didn't know what else there was to say.

Kakashi sighed, before sitting back down and smiling at Izumo, just slightly. "My father died two decades ago, Izumo."

Wincing, the chunin dared to say: "It doesn't stop hurting though." At least, for him it didn't. His own family had died in the Kyuubi attack, which for him had been sixteen years ago, but it was still painful to think about them.

"No, it doesn't," agreed Kakashi. "But there comes a time to let old grudges go. Even when I understood why he did what he did on that mission, I never got how he could just kill himself afterwards. A shinobi of his skill would've made an enormous impact on the war. It could've saved countless lives. I assumed that he couldn't handle the shame, and took the coward's way out."

Kakashi paused. "I've done a lot of things that I'm ashamed of, but I've never considered abandoning my duties the way he did. I forgave him eventually for saving his comrades instead of completing his mission, but I never forgave him for committing suicide. I figured that if I could keep going, then he should've done so, too." The jounin started fiddling with a kunai, perhaps just to have something to do with his hands. "I forgot that there was one thing I couldn't appreciate: being a father. It's not the same, but when I was in that water prison… I was so afraid. Not for myself. I'm prepared to die, if I must. But I wasn't prepared to see my team die. I would've gladly accepted my own death if it gave them even a slightly better chance at surviving. I can't even imagine how afraid he must have been… for me."

Izumo stayed quiet. There was nothing to say. Instead, he scooted closer to Kakashi, and leaned his shoulder against the other man's. They sat together in silence for a while.

"I still wish he hadn't done it, and I don't know if I can ever truly forgive him. But… I think I understand him a lot better now, at least. There was a time when I was proud to be his son. Maybe it's time for me to honor the sacrifices that he made for me."

The chakra sabre, once reforged, emitted a brilliant white light in Kakashi's hands.

A/N: So this ended up being extremely Kakashi-centric, extremely dialogue heavy, and extremely angsty. Sorry, but it's a chapter. Plus, now you've got the image of sage mode-Hirashin-white flash Kakashi to keep you excited. :P


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